Originally Posted by cascade168
I think something that's being misunderstood in this thread is what "n" means. "n" is the number of bearings it takes for the first occurence of the bearing set to jumble. "Jumble" means that when the bearing set is test seated the loose balls do not lie in a perfect circle, because there are too many bearings to allow it. So, you eliminate one bearing until you can get the loose balls to line up in a perfect circle. This will almost always end up with the number of loose bearings at least one more than you would have in a caged bearing set. The goal is to use more bearings and distribute the load more widely. Not less, as you stated.
In other words, another way of looking at what "n-1" means is that "[(first occurence of jumble) - 1]" would be optimum for hubs and BBs.
Cascasde, I am having a hard time understanding this. When I put in balls, I just put them in until no more will fit on the race. In other words, every ball I put in touches the race. Usually, there is a "smidgeon" of space between a couple of the balls when I am done. Does this mean I am doing n-1 right?