NKE Austria Developed A Special Bearing Unit for Lemken

NKE Austria Developed A Special Bearing Unit for Lemken NKE Austria has developed a special bearing unit for a cutter tine rotor of a power harrow for Lemken, an agricultural machinery manufacturer. The bearing unit replaces four separate components to reduce stock, simplify purchasing, storage and installation and to cut total production costs. The Lemken Zirkon 10 power harrow was previously designed with a standard deep groove ball bearing. A radial oil seal running on the inner race of a needle roller bearing and a felt seal in a metal housing were arranged next to the deep groove ball bearing.Each of these four components had to be handled and fitted separately.The objective of the new design was to reduce the costs. NKE proposed a unit in which the external seals were already integrated in the bearing.Based on a standard 6212 deep-groove ball bearing, the resulting bearing features an RS synthetic rubber seal on one side, a radial oil seal between the outer and inner races as well as a felt seal with a metal cap on the other. The design changes required from Lemken were minimal.Only one snap ring groove had to be relocated.Thanks to the new design, only a single part has to be purchased and fitted now instead of the four components previously required. The special bearing was developed by NKE in co-operation with Lemken's design engineers.Before its use in serial production, a sample batch was field tested for about a year. Lemken's Managing Director Dr Franz-Georg von Busse said 'We appreciate the expertise and competence of our contacts at NKE, their flexibility in dealing with fluctuating demand and solving technical problems and not least the good price/performance ratio'. NKE's bearing solutions for Lemken and other agricultural machine manufacturers are designed to withstand the adverse conditions to which these machines are routinely subjected.