Cages and rolling elements
Cages, rollers and washers
The full catalogue holds 612 more items brought in to order.
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Cages and rolling elements
About this category
- Type
- rolling element assemblies without rings of their own
- Families
- flat cages HW and BF, roller cage assemblies K, washers WS and GS
- Raceway
- a surface in your design — hardened to about 60 HRC and ground
- Why
- installations where a complete bearing will not fit
These items are not complete bearings — they are the rolling element assembly without rings. The raceway is a surface in the machine itself, so the design has to provide what a bearing ring normally does: hardness of about 60 HRC, ground surface finish and form accuracy. In return the arrangement takes minimal space and allows guided motion over any length of travel.
Flat cages HW and BF guide linear motion along flat hardened tracks — they work in machine slides and injection moulds where a profiled rail has nowhere to fit. Washers WS and GS complete the 811 and 812 thrust assemblies: WS runs on the shaft, GS in the housing, and both provide a raceway where the structural material is too soft.
What to look at when selecting
- 01Check the hardness and finish of the raceway in your own design — that, not the cage, sets the service life.
- 02For linear motion, count the travel: a flat cage moves half the stroke of the moving part, so the track must be correspondingly longer.
- 03For 811 and 812 assemblies, buy the washers along with the cage unless the shaft and housing are hardened.
- 04Assemblies without rings tolerate no misalignment — check that the tracks are parallel before ordering.
Common questions
- How does a flat cage differ from a linear guide?
- A guide brings its own rail and carriage, so it runs on a supplied raceway and tolerates ordinary structural surfaces. A flat cage is only needles in a cage — the raceway is hardened track in your machine. It takes a few millimetres of height and costs less, but it shifts machining work to the designer.
- How far does a flat cage travel?
- Half the travel of the moving part, because the needles roll between two tracks. The track therefore has to exceed the stroke by half the cage length at each end, or the cage will run off the raceway.
- How do I tell a WS washer from a GS washer?
- WS seats on the shaft, GS in the housing; they differ in diameters — WS has the smaller bore, GS the larger outside diameter. A complete 811 bearing needs both plus the K811 cage assembly.