Heavy Duty Ball Transfer Plate / Lazy Susan Cage

A 240 mm printable bearing cage for moving or rotating heavy objects using 10 mm steel balls and a metal wear plate.

The cage can hold up to 60 steel balls, 10 mm in diameter. The cage itself is about 240 mm in diameter. I printed it in ABS to better handle wear, but PETG should work fine too, since the cage only keeps the balls in place and does not carry the main load. I would advise against PLA, as it could wear out a bit too fast for my liking.

A metal plate is used as the wear surface. The center is held with an M6 countersunk screw threaded into a blind hole, tightened just enough to keep everything captive while still allowing free movement.

In the video, that’s me ~80 kg test load rotating with a single push.

The ball pockets are intentionally slightly imperfect and not perfectly aligned. That gives it three advantages:

- It creates a soft detent effect, so it doesn’t roll away by itself even under load. - It spreads wear across the full surface instead of cutting fixed grooves. - It gives dust and dirt somewhere to go, instead of locking a ball in place. Not bad for a printed cage and a handful of steel balls.

An alternative version could be used as a lazy Susan by adding another plate underneath, making the cage fully captive and turning it into a giant thrust bearing between two plates..