For most optical guidance applications, Barden provides bearings in 440C - a martensitic stainless steel that provides good corrosion resistance.

To reduce friction and adhesive wear, the bearings can also be designed with retainers that incorporate PTFE as a source of lubrication, particularly for applications in which oscillatory movement of the bearings is required.
Super-precision bearings are being used to improve optical guidance systems and stabilise camera platforms for military and commercial applications

Super-precision bearings are being used to improve optical guidance systems and stabilise camera platforms for military and commercial applications

Often the bearings are designed with special ball separators (toroids), positioned over every other ball in the bearing and manufactured from a self-lubricating material.

This ensures that the bearing meets the low torque requirements of the application.

The toroids also enable a high complement of balls to be assembled within the bearing, which helps to increase the load-carrying capability and stiffness of the bearings.

This self-lubricating material is typically virgin PTFE, however other alternative materials have been developed that comprise of a blend of molybdenum disulphide and glass fibre.

For dry-lubricated bearing systems, coatings are available for the raceways and balls.

These include MoS2, MoST and silver coatings.

Clearances with mating components must normally be kept to a minimum, as any percussive loads generated by vibration will affect the optical system's performance.

To attain these, Barden often supplies kits of parts to the customer, pre-matched to controlled clearances in order to simplify and minimise assembly time and costs.

Barden manufactures bearings to ABEC7 precision standards, providing runouts in the micron range.

The company provides bearing solutions for a range of mechanical gimbal systems and gyros for such stabilised camera platforms.

Here, a gyro-bearing spin-axis system may utilise a cartridge bearing unit, which incorporates a bearing with two rows of balls, a single outer ring and two inner rings.

The customer can mount the bearings quickly and easily into their own assembly.

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