What is an integrated plastic bearing?

BNL focuses on evolving traditional bearing designs into products that offer additional value to its customers.

Using plastic design and moulding techniques, the company combines components, features and functions, with the inner or outer of the bearing, creating an integrated bearing design. Integration reduces costs, weight and assembly steps, whilst improving performance, energy efficiency and maintenance time.

Different industries require different integration. Examples include:

• An ATM customer needed to save space in its new cash machine. BNL integrated shafts, rollers and fixings with the bearings, saving not only space but component cost too.
• A photocopier customer wanted to reduce costs by replacing expensive metalwork. BNL integrated a double pulley wheel and bracket with our plastic bearing, removing the metalwork, and also reducing weight and torque, leading to a higher rate of paper processing per minute.
• A CCTV customer needed a lighter, more compact pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) product. BNL provided a PTZ bearing product that surpassed the customer’s size and weight requirements, by integrating the pan and tilt bearings with air and cable management features, PCB board fittings, slip rings, drive systems, plus ‘snap-fit’ features that lead to quicker, easier and less expensive installation and maintenance for the client.

Plastic bearing designs are generally much lighter than a steel equivalent, but by removing components and fixings from the product, they can be up to 50% lighter than an alternative multi-component solution. By reducing weight, torque to rotate is lessened on start-up and in operation, so smaller, less expensive motors can be used, which consume less energy.

Whatever the aim of the client, whether it is to reduce cost, save space, or improve whole system performance, integrated plastic bearings do not just meet their specifications, but can provide many added-value benefits too.

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