Wheel, wheel diameter 48 mm, hard wheel in solid ABS, 40 kg load capacity, twin ball bearing

A hard tread, precise running. This guide roller with a diameter of 48 mm has both the tread and the hub in ABS and runs on double ball bearings. The tread hardness of 75° Shore D gives low rolling resistance and a stiff, precise roll; this is a wheel meant to guide and run, not to damp.

The tread width is 16 mm and the hub width 18 mm. The hub bore is 8 mm and the bearing consists of two 608ZZ ball bearings, one of the most common standard sizes on the market, shielded and lubricated for life. The load capacity is 40 kg per wheel at 4 km/h. The tread is gray, the temperature range runs from -20 °C to +70 °C and the weight stops at 0.04 kg, so the wheel loads the structure with no dead weight to speak of.

ABS is an amorphous thermoplastic with good impact strength and a hard, smooth surface. For a wheel that means a tread that does not flatten under a static load and that rolls as easily after half a year standing still as on the first day. The downside is that a hard tread damps neither shocks nor noise; on an uneven floor an ABS wheel is heard more than a wheel with a rubber or TPE tread. The upper temperature limit of +70 °C at the same time gives margin in environments where softer tread materials start to lose firmness.

Compared with a rubber covered wheel of the same size you trade comfort for precision. The rubber tread forgives grit and unevenness but gives sideways flex, and in a guiding function flex is the same as play; the ABS tread holds the track. It is also worth knowing that the wheel takes a static load without damage. A sliding door that stands still over the holidays rolls just as easily when work starts up again, without the flat spots a soft tread can get.

Guide rollers of this type are used as running and steering wheels in tracks: sliding doors and sliding gates, pull-out units in machine guards, hatches, lighter conveyors and structures where a moving part has to be guided sideways. With double ball bearings in the hub, the wheel takes both radial load and the axial guiding forces a track produces, and that is the difference from simpler plain bearing wheels that tend to bind when the force comes in at an angle. In Swedish engineering workshops the format often sits in exactly those machine guards and inspection hatches, where the wheel does thousands of cycles without supervision.

At assembly: put the wheel on an 8 mm shaft and clamp the inner rings of the bearings with spacers on both sides, so that the outer ring and the wheel body run free. Then the ball bearings work as intended and you avoid the whole wheel spinning on the shaft. The 608ZZ bearings need no relubrication; should a bearing take a beating after many years of service, the size is so common that a replacement is available from every bearing supplier. Check at the same time that the surface of the track is smooth and free of burrs; a sharp edge wears the tread more than a thousand normal cycles.

Do the load arithmetic before you decide. Two wheels in a sliding door rarely share the weight evenly, so size for the most heavily loaded wheel rather than the average. If the structure needs to take more or run even hotter, there are wheels entirely in metal in the same size class; if it needs quieter running, a softer tread in TPE or polyurethane is the right direction. Complete dimensions and a drawing are in the manufacturer's data sheet.

Want to check the wheel choice against your track or your shaft dimension? Call us and we will sort it out.