Spyraflo Inc. (USA; website) has introduced a product line of the bearing industry's first miniature stainless steel mounted ball bearings, for shafts under 1/2".

The company said the pillow block mounted bearings solve a particular engineering dilemma, which is how to design proper solid mounting points for miniature bearings, and particularly those requiring high precision mountings.

In the past, engineers and designers had to understand what mechanical motion needed to be accomplished, the forces involved, and a myriad of other concerns, just to get to the point where they understood enough about the application and the bearing requirements in order to be able to design the bearing mounting structures into the equipment properly. Even the most experienced design engineers have built failure-prone and flex-prone bearing mounts into precision equipment, or rendered them impossible to service.

Being able to deign and source finished bearings from Spyraflo, complete and mounted, is a key value-added benefit.

Spyraflo also pointed out the mounted bearings are more economical in the long run, as not only design and production manufacturability is made faster, easier, and less prone to errors, but also serviceability is greatly enhanced and more cost-effective.

The pillow blocks are precision machined from sintered aluminum. Combining double-shielded stainless bearings with the aluminum blocks makes the assemblies highly corrosion-resistant. Seals can be specified in place of the shields, better suited for food service and other washdown applications.

Initially, Spyraflo said they are offering only non-aligning bearings, primarily because the demand has been for higher precision applications. They are available in metric and inch dimensions, for shaft sizes ranging from 1/8" through 3/8", or 4mm through 10mm. 5251R9N7.

Spyraflo is best known for its patented line of self-clinching, self-aligning bearings, which are best explained by the company's own animation.

video: Spyraflo self-clinching bearing