Rawk - Bearings
Rawk - Bearings
The ABEC scale is a system used throughout the manufacturing industry for rating the manufacturing tolerances of precision bearings, developed by the Annular Bearing Engineering Committee (ABEC) of the American Bearing Manufacturers Association (ABMA). Bearings are rated using an odd number between 1 and 9. The higher the number, the greater the manufactured precision of the bearing. Bearings manufactured within tighter tolerance ranges provide greater accuracy of shaft rotation and contribute to higher speed capability. However, the ABEC rating does not specify many other critical factors, such as smoothness of the rolling contact surfaces, ball precision, material quality, impact resistance, installation requirements, maintenance requirements, lubrication grade etc. All these bearing design requirements are also important to the performance of your skate bearing, even though the ABEC rating takes none of these factors into consideration. Why? The purpose of ABEC is to give an overall quality standard of tolerances and not to credit a specific brand of bearing as good nor bad.
There are no required materials in the ABEC grades. ABEC specifications refer only to bearing accuracy and precision. Bearings not conforming to at least ABEC 1 are not precision bearings. ABEC and ISO precision gradings are used for bearings throughout the industry.
The scale is designed to allow your to make an informed decision about the type of bearing you are purchasing. High rated bearings are intended for high precision. Medium and Lower grades are intended for the vast majority of applications such as skates etc. High ABEC rated bearings allow optimal performance of critical applications requiring very high Revolutions Per Minute (RPM) and smooth operation. High ABEC rated bearings do not necessarily make equipment go faster however they allow high precision equipment to operate at their optimum speed and efficiency.
ISO's equivalent standard is ISO 492.
ABEC ISO 492
ABEC 1 normal class 6X
ABEC 3 class 6
ABEC 5 class 5
ABEC 7 class 4
ABEC 9 class 2
