I offer 10 reasons that face designers when chosing tapered roller vs deep groove ball bearing:

1. Originally, long long ago (60+ years), tapered rollers were the bearing of choice due to their cost. They were bulk mfg'd. for front axle car bearings. This was during the early days when Mr. Hewitt & Mr Robins developed the troughed conveyor belt (1930's), followed by others (Link Belt, Stephens-Adams, et al) prior to the formation of CEMA(1966).

2. Today, in my opinion, the USA mfg's are one of the few groups that still strongly support use of tapered roller bearings to maintain their Cartel against foreign supply (ISO connection) in the USA.

3. Tapered roller bearings require accurate preloading, during assembly, to take up clearances without overloading the bearing.

This produces a QA product risk to the end user.

4. Tapered roller and its races act as grease pump requiring more frequent lubrication - 5 times as often (See SKF greasing freq.)

5. Tapered roller bearing needs regreasing according to the mfg.

Field greasing introduces contamination that prematurely fails the bearing.

6. Deep groove ball bearings are made seal-for-life for most installations (depends on RPM, hours in service and bearing size). Advantage: no regreasing unlike points 4 and 5 above.

7. Deep groove ball bearings have a lower drag.

8. Deep groove ball bearing has a better rolling accuracy.

9. Deep groove ball bearing has a much larger selection of sizes to enable optimization of idler spacing and bearing selection to produce the least NPV cost - considering the many design factors.

10. Deep groove ball bearings are manufactured by many companies, in many countries, around the world. They adhere to ISO standards for the shaft end connection. This provides many sources of supply. Tapered roller bearings usually have no end connction standard. Therefore, the end user is wed to a sole source when replacing rollers.

Hopefully, this adds to your insight.

Lawrence Nordel

President

Conveyor Dynamics, Inc.

Bellingham, WA, USA

ph 360/671-2200 ■