LME Series Linear Ball Bushings are used for guiding motion along a shaft rather than around it — the balls recirculate through the bushing, so the stroke is limited only by the length of the shaft. Each ball track is a closed loop: balls carry load along the straight section, turn out at the end of the stroke and return through the bushing body, so a short bushing supports an unlimited travel. This page sets out the industries and machine positions where the type is specified, what has to be stated on the order, mounting practice, and the duties where a different bearing type is the correct answer. Boundary dimensions are to ISO 10285 (European series). This series is catalogued from 12 mm to 50 mm shaft diameter; the full table of boundary dimensions is further down the page.
Typical Applications for LME Series Linear Ball Bushings
The machine positions and sectors where this type is specified:
- Maintenance and repair (MRO): replacing a failed bearing where the original designation, clearance group and sealing have to be matched exactly.
- OEM machine building: designed-in shaft support on new equipment, specified from the load, speed and envelope at the design stage.
- 3D printers and desktop machines: X and Y carriages on ground shafting, where cost and quiet running matter more than load.
- CNC and gantry axes: supported-rail axes on long spans, with open bushings running on shafts that are continuously supported.
- Automation slides and pick-and-place: short, fast strokes where a recirculating bushing is lighter and cheaper than a profile rail.
How to Specify LME Series Linear Ball Bushings for Your Application
- Shaft diameter: Start from the shaft diameter the shaft or housing gives you — this series is catalogued from 12 mm to 50 mm — then check the outer diameter and width against the space available. The boundary dimensions are fixed by the standard, so they are the same from any manufacturer; the load ratings and limiting speeds are not, and belong to the specific bearing being supplied.
- Metric or inch: LM series is metric and LME is the inch equivalent; the shaft has to match. Confirm which the existing shafting is before ordering.
- Bushing form: Closed bushings suit end-supported shafts. Open bushings have a longitudinal slot so they can straddle a continuously supported rail, which is what makes a long span possible — but the slot is a gap in the ball tracks, so the load must not point into it. Pre-assembled units (SC, SCS) put the bushing in a housing block ready to bolt down.
- Shaft specification: The shaft is the raceway. Specify induction-hardened shafting at 58–62 HRC with sufficient case depth, ground and polished to h6 or g6, with a stated straightness. A soft or unhardened shaft is brinelled by the balls within a short time.
- Arrangement: Use two bushings per axis, spaced apart, so the carriage can resist the tilting moment its own load applies. A single bushing under an overhung load jams rather than slides — the ratio of overhang to bearing spacing decides whether the axis works.
- Designation and suffixes: State the complete designation including every suffix. The base number gives the type and the boundary dimensions; the suffixes carry the sealing, the cage, the clearance group, the tolerance class and any special execution — and two bearings whose base numbers match but whose suffixes differ are not interchangeable.
- Clearance and tolerance: State the running clearance or fit class the assembly requires, together with the tolerances of the mating parts that produce it. For this type the clearance is created by the parts around the bearing rather than being built into it, which is precisely why it has to be written down.
- Seal or shield: State open, shielded (ZZ, 2Z) or sealed (2RS, 2RZ). A shield is non-contacting: it excludes coarse contamination and costs nothing in speed. A contact seal excludes fine dust and water and retains grease, but it rubs — it adds drag, raises the running temperature and lowers the permissible speed. Sealed bearings are also greased for life and cannot be relubricated.
- Cage material: State the cage. Pressed steel is the default and suits most duties; machined brass takes shock, high temperature and poor lubrication better and is used in large and heavily loaded bearings; polyamide is quiet, light and low-friction but has a temperature limit of about 120 °C and is attacked by aged oil. The cage is not a detail — it is the component that most often sets the real temperature limit of the bearing.
- Shaft and housing fit: Specify the seat tolerances, not just the bearing. The rule is that the ring which rotates relative to the load direction takes the interference fit: for a rotating inner ring under normal radial load the shaft seat is typically k5 or k6 with the housing bore H7, and where the outer ring rotates the interference moves to the housing (N7 or P7) with a clearance fit (g6) on the shaft. Heavier loads and hollow shafts move the fits tighter. A correctly chosen bearing in the wrong fit fails anyway — too loose and the ring creeps and frets its seat, too tight and the interference consumes the internal clearance and the bearing runs preloaded.
- Standard: Boundary dimensions are to ISO 10285 (European series). Quoting the standard on the order guarantees the mounting dimensions are interchangeable between suppliers — it does not standardize load ratings, limiting speeds or internal design, which remain manufacturer-specific.
Mounting & Assembly Practice
- Press on the outer body of the bushing with a sleeve, never on the ball retainer or the end seals — the retainer is a plastic or thin steel cage and pressing on it releases the balls.
- Align the two shafts of an axis parallel to each other and in the same plane before locking the supports down. Recirculating bushings have almost no misalignment tolerance, and a converging pair binds at one end of the stroke.
- Support long shafts at intervals: an end-supported shaft deflects under its own carriage load, and the deflection shows up as varying friction along the stroke.
- Fit wipers or bellows in any environment producing chips or dust. Recirculating balls carry contamination into the return track and jam.
Common Selection Mistakes with LME Series Linear Ball Bushings
- Using an open bushing with the load pointing into the open slot, where there are no ball tracks to carry it.
- Running on drawn or chrome-plated tube that has not been through-hardened, then finding indentations along the loaded section of the stroke.
- Over-constraining the axis: four bushings on two shafts that are not accurately parallel fight each other for the whole stroke.
- Sizing this bearing from the boundary dimensions alone. Load ratings and limiting speeds are manufacturer-specific for this series and are deliberately not published here — take them from the catalog of the bearing actually being supplied and calculate the life against them.
Where LME Series Linear Ball Bushings Are Not the Right Choice
- Not for rotation. A recirculating linear bushing guides motion along the shaft; it is not a journal bearing and turning the shaft inside it destroys the ball tracks.
- No misalignment tolerance — shafts that are not parallel or not coplanar cause binding and brinelling, not just extra friction.
- Not for heavy moment loads. Where the carriage overhangs, a profile rail guide carries the moment; a round-shaft bushing largely does not.
- Not for contaminated environments without wipers, and not for axial load along the shaft, which the bushing does not carry at all.
- This type will not tolerate misalignment. The rolling or sliding contact is a line, so a fraction of a degree of tilt moves the whole load onto the end of the contact and the stress concentration there is what fails the bearing.
