Burned through one of my 8 mm X axis rods that came with my pb GO! v.1 with LM8UU bearings but after replacing the rod (the replacement rod was hard chromed, but I think the original was too) and both bearings on that side it’s held up well. Lube occasionally with Super-Lube. May upgrade to Igus anodized Al rods with their fancy plastic bushings at some point.
I’m using the case hardened steel rods from mcmastercarr for linear bearings. Super difficult to cut, and really strong. After non-use of my printer for a year, they started to show surface rust. Some 2000 grit sand paper cleared it up.
@Stephanie_A “After non-use of my printer for a year…” O_O
I don’t use mine every day, but I couldn’t imagine going anywhere near a year!
My MakerGear Prusa has a mixture of bronze and polymer self-aligning bushings, running on stainless rods (Rick was transitioning from one to the other). I’ve had to add a few drops of oil to the rods over the course of a few hundred hours of printing. The drawbacks are sensitivity to misalignment of parallel rods and some inherent slop. I’ll be using at least some rolling element bearings in the design I’m working on now.
You shouldn’t be surprised to see the non-chromed rods developing grooves. If they become a problem just rotate the rods so that the bearings touch in different places.
I started out on O1 tool steel, but the real chromed rods are so much better, and not much more expensive if you look in the right placed (hint: they ride the slow boat). I’m no longer designing for any type of bearing that runs on round rods, though. I’m much happier with the performance of V-slot from OpenBuilds, and I’m also beginning to experiment with various types of bearings that run on steel rails instead of rods.
I never had an issue with the Igus bearings. They ran great. I eventually replaced them with THK rails because I got them for free, but will still be using the Igus if that wouldnt have come along
I’m 2 years into using delrin V-wheels on Makerslide, and they seem to be holding up.
+1 for vslot. I’ve come to the same conclusions as Dale and Whosa, rolling bearings make so much more sense. My new machine design uses vslot on one axis and igus I glide bearings/shafts on the other. Incidentally, vslot is easy to make using tslot and a router table, so you only need to buy the delrin wheels from open builds and they are pretty cheap.
@Tim_Rastall you’ll have to do a writeup on the v-slot using a router table…
The problem I see with routing vslot is that you would blow through the anodized layer meaning the aluminum would be softer and wear more. For the record, typically stainless steel will be softer then hardened steel and so stainless rods are more likely to develop grooves. @nophead did some work on this topic. I want to like vwheels over bearings but it doesnt seem like the printer designs are as compact as those using rods.
On my corexy I am using pbc linear frelon lined (aka Teflon graphite) aluminum linear bearings. They are best with ceramic coated rods. I have tested igus bearings to compare and the pbc frelon bearing were better by far. Only issue is they are a very tight tolerance bearing to rod. So your alignment for the bearing mount has to be perfect. I got around this by mounting them inside orings to allow for misalignment.
http://m.ebay.com/itm?itemId=400416690092
http://www.essentracomponents.com/product/tlm-1526/1400108/fl/4294957711-4294957710
@Thomas_Sanladerer Link for the ceramic rods. http://www.pbclinear.com/
Really you can thank @Eclsnowman as i had gotten this link from him.
@Wayne_Friedt the link in my post above yours is the cheapest place I have found them.
@Eclsnowman what about the frelon with chromed and hardered rods. Is it good too?
@George_Salgueiro that works too.
I have been using igus plastic bearings ever since I noticed the scoring from my LM8UU bearings on my drill rods. A year and a half later and everything still working great. I would like to print some out of nylon and vacuum seal them with PTFE liquid to impregnate them. Worth a try.