How To Tell If Your Bearings Are Ceramic

The ceramic orange seal and the ceramic metal shield feature ceramic balls inside stainless steel retainers which hold the balls inside the stainless steel rings of the bearing known as races.

How to tell if your bearings are ceramic.

The first thing that strikes the eye when looking at bicycle bearings is the difference in price between steel bearings and hybrid ceramic bearings. The website livestrong states that steel bearings have a hardness of around 30 million lbs per square inch. This is mostly due to the additional time spent to perfect a quality ceramic ball. Its been stated that worn bearings should be replaced because they will be noisy because 301 321 is a dry lube.

How are ceramic bearings made ceramic materials have high strength high hardness corrosion resistance and excellent high temperature stability which can effectively improve bearing performance and expand the range of use of bearings in special environments such as high temperature and corrosion. It takes weeks for a kogel ball to sit in a tumbler and be perfectly polished. They ll be more resilient but you should still avoid water when possible. When trying to decide whether a bearing is sealed using the afbma or skf code note the shields or seals section.

Ceramic bearings are mostly made using ceramic silicon nitride si3n4 which is both lighter and harder than traditional steel bearings although zirconia is also sometimes used. If the bearing number uses the afbma code look for ee or 2rsi for skf to determine if the bearing is sealed on both sides. This is the only way to identify whether a bearing is sealed. While the ceramic balls need no protection form corrosion the rest of the bearing does.

At present how are ceramic bearings made ceramic bearings and shock bearing parts such as nitrided si n ceramics are not only used in high tech and important equipment fields but also in. Ceramic hybrid bearings have a few distinct advantages says cory oliver head of marketing for the south florida company which he says was the. It s called stainless steel not stain free steel and does need lube if you expect your bearings to last very long.