Shielded and sealed plastic bearings from BNL

Shielded or sealed bearings are used when dust, sand, debris or liquid needs to be kept out of the bearing. BNL offers a full range of these products for such challenging application areas.

Debris and certain liquids can damage bearing races and cause increased wear and premature failure. Shields will keep out larger particles, whereas seals will keep out finer debris. BNL shielded and sealed bearings are a lightweight, and the company says that can provide more cost-effective solution than steel equivalents in many cases

There are many other benefits, too, including:

• Corrosion and chemical resistance
• Being non-magnetic
• Being lightweight
• Low torque
• Inherent noise-dampening characteristics of plastic

BNL designs and manufactures bearings with moulded raceways, which it says outperform machined equivalents and deliver longer life. A fine, hardened, crystalline layer is achieved when moulding the company’s bearings, which is removed when raceways are machine manufactured losing the benefit of improved wear rates.

Designing for specification and value

Moulding its bearings gives BNL the design flexibility to combine components and functions into integrated, single bearing products. By integrating shields or seals into its moulded bearing designs, BNL says it can reduce component count and cost, assembly times, weight and size of the final product.

By using different shield and seal designs – from contact shields, to more complex labyrinth seals – plus specially selected materials, BNL can meet the demands of most applications and environments. The company’s industry standard bearing range all have integrated shields, and BNL also designs integrated shields and seals for custom bearing applications, including vacuum cleaners and accessories, photocopier toner cartridges, automotive fire wall bearings, automotive steering column bearings, CCTV PTZ units, and thermal imaging and satellite tracking units.