Small Ball Bearings

 

        A ball bearing is a type of rolling-element bearing that uses balls to maintain the separation between the bearing races.

 

         The purpose of a ball bearing is to reduce rotational friction and support radial and axial loads. It achieves this by using at least two races to contain the balls and transmit the loads through the balls. In most applications, one race is stationary and the other is attached to the rotating assembly (e.g., a hub or shaft). As one of the bearing races rotates it causes the balls to rotate as well. Because the balls are rolling they have a much lower coefficient of friction than if two flat surfaces were sliding against each other.

 

        Ball bearings tend to have lower load capacity for their size than other kinds of rolling-element bearings due to the smaller contact area between the balls and races. However, they can tolerate some misalignment of the inner and outer races.

What Are Small Bearings?

         Small bearings are simply another name for miniature ball bearings. Miniature ball bearings are typically very small, smaller than an inch or two, or smaller than 20 millimeters under metric measurement standards.

 

Information about Miniature Ball Bearings

         Miniature ball bearings are composed in a variety of parts, including an outer and inner ring, balls, retainers and snap rings. They may also have shields or seals, flanges and steel ball cages. Miniature ball bearings come in a number of different types. They can be radial ball bearings, designed for radial loads, which will be either deep groove or angular contact bearings, or they can be axial bearings, designed for thrust loads. They can have flanges for stability or no flanges. They can be shielded or open. Shielded small bearings offer additional protection in both directions, as they help prevent contamination into the bearing and also help prevent lubrication leakage from the bearing into the application.

 

How Small Bearings Work

         Miniature ball bearings, or small bearings, are specially designed to reduce friction between moving parts in various industrial applications. Since many applications require large parts and may be subject to a limited amount of space, the reduced size of small bearings can be ideal.

 

Uses of Small Bearings

           There is a wide variety of applications for miniature ball bearings. Small bearings can be used for medical applications, in anything from dialysis machines to medical robotic devices. They may be used in office products such as check and money sorting machines, or in computer peripherals like hard drives.