[iyportne]

Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss

...What's the actual diameter on the ball bearings? I know in commercial bearings, the inner and outer races are cut into a concave path so that the balls automatically center in the path. What made you choose to do use parting cutter?...Are you guys seeing any issues with the balls catching or jamming since they can move side to side relative to each other and since you don't have an inner cage?...

The balls are 0.250" DELRIN bearings. The channel depths are 3/32" leaving a 1/16" float gap between plates. The parting tool is actually 0.250 circular arc so the channel is a concave path with nearly full contact with bearing circumference. Running dry there is no apparent bearing-to-bearing interference. The first prototype was cut with CNC Mill using a ball end mill, but that was very slow and produced too much cutter advance ridging perpendicular to ball path.