3D Printing Linear Bearings - superjamie/lazyweb GitHub Wiki

Place holder for a page about linear bearings.

Brief Thoughts

  • TODO: Dimensions of LMxUU and LMxLUU bearings
  • PLA is good, lubricate with dry PTFE oil or silicone spray
    • Russ from RWG found silicone was better than other lubricants
  • ABS is not good
  • PETG is said to be good, but haven't found anyone who's actually done it
  • Nylon is supposed to be good and self-lubricating, but Jean-Daniel from the HyperCube Facebook group tried Nylon and called it a fail
  • People say plastic bearings suffer "stick" when moving from idle
  • Igus Drylin polymer bearings are an option
    • Watch the OD, only RJUM-02 Compact carrier has OD the same as LMxUU
    • You are supposed to press-fit the un-enclosed bearings?
    • Other models come in an aluminium carrier which actually takes iglide J bushings
    • You could also print bushing holders for iglide J polymer bushings
    • Igus also have a Tribofilament for printing bearings which is really expensive (US$100/kg available in 750g rolls), the marketing material says it's way better than ABS and very close to PETG
  • Oil-impregnated bronze-coated steel with graphite pads are another option
    • Apparently a 5B or softer (8B, 12B, etc) pencil should have sufficient graphite and little enough clay binder
    • Todo: That printer grade-to-graphite content list which is floating around

References