Introduction to Ball Spline

Ball spline uses balls installed in the outer cylinder of the spline shaft to smoothly roll and transmit torque in precision ground rolling grooves. It adopts a unique contact point design with a larger contact angle (40 °). In addition to high sensitivity, it can greatly improve the load capacity and is suitable for environments with excessive vibration impact loads, high positioning accuracy requirements, and high-speed motion performance. It can also play an effective role in such environments. At the same time, even when used instead of linear ball bushings, the rated load of ball splines is more than ten times that of linear bushings with the same shaft diameter, making the design very compact. Even under cantilever loads, torques, and other effects, it can be safely used and has high durability.

Ball spline structure

Ball splines can be divided into two types: SLF with flange and SLT without flange. Due to the size of the shaft diameter, the contact path of the steel balls can be divided into 2 rows (180 °) (SLF/SLT6~20) and 4 rows (70 °) (SLF/SLT25~50). In addition, hollow shafts are also available for selection.

Advantages of Ball Spline

1. High load capacity

The rolling groove of the ball is precision ground and formed, and adopts Gothic 40 ° angle contact. Due to the large contact angle, it has a large load capacity in both radial and torque directions.

2. Zero clearance in rotation direction

By using 2-4 rows of relative ball bearings with a contact angle of 40 °, the spline shaft is combined with the spline outer cylinder, and the clearance in the rotation direction can be zero by adjusting the preload method.

3. Highly sensitive

Due to the special design of the contact point of the steel ball, it is not only highly rigid but also more sensitive, and can reduce energy waste.

4. High rigidity

Due to the large contact angle, it has high rigidity and can be subjected to appropriate preloading depending on the situation, thus achieving high torque rigidity.

5. Easy assembly

Due to the special design, even if the spline outer cylinder is detached from the spline shaft, the steel ball will not fall off. Therefore, assembly, maintenance, and inspection are all easy to carry out.