SKF6010-2RS1Deep Groove Ball Bearing, Contact Rubber Seals Both Sides, 50 x 80 x 16 mm — 22.9 kN Dynamic, 5000 rpm, Sealed For Life

Product Description

What this part is

A single-row deep groove ball bearing in the metric 60 series, 50 mm bore × 80 mm outside diameter × 16 mm width. Both sides are closed with contact rubber seals and the bearing arrives grease-filled and sealed for life, so it goes into service straight from the wrapper with no lubrication step and no relubrication schedule. This is the workhorse geometry for a 50 mm motor or pump shaft: it carries radial load with a useful amount of axial load in either direction, tolerates high speed, and needs no maintenance.

Decoding the designation

6: Bearing type, single-row deep groove ball bearing.

0, the implied second digit: Width series 0. It is never printed for the 60 series, which is why the number reads 6010 rather than 6(0)010.

1: Diameter series 1, the medium-light cross-section.

10: Bore size code. Multiply by 5 for the bore in millimetres: 10 × 5 = 50 mm.

2RS1: A contact seal on both sides. SKF’s 2RS1 seal is acrylonitrile-butadiene (nitrile) rubber moulded onto a sheet steel reinforcement, and SKF classes it as its maximum-sealing option: better exclusion of dirt, debris and liquid than a shield or a non-contact seal, at the cost of continuous rubbing friction.

Cage suffix, blank: The standard pressed steel cage. SKF prints M, MA, MB, TN9, TNH or TN2 when a brass, polyamide or PEEK cage is fitted; a blank means pressed steel.

Clearance suffix, blank: Normal radial internal clearance, CN. C2 and C1 are tighter, C3 to C5 progressively looser.

Grease suffix, blank: The standard SKF fill. For this bearing, where the outside diameter is above 62 mm, that is MT33: a lithium-soap mineral-oil grease, NLGI consistency 3, usable from −30 to +120 °C.

Why the SKF Explorer marking on the carton matters:
The master carton reads SKF Explorer, and 6010-2RS1 is an Explorer performance-class bearing. Explorer is not cosmetic branding — it is a separate manufacturing specification using super-clean, tougher steel, running accuracy held tighter than the ISO standard requires, and sealing developed for heavily contaminated environments. The practical result is longer rating life and lower noise and vibration than a standard-class bearing of the same number. On a bearing that failed early in a gritty or wet application, the Explorer specification is the part of this listing worth paying attention to.

What these specs mean in practice

Contact seals are the right choice when contamination or moisture is the thing that kills bearings, and the wrong choice when drag and heat are the problem. The rubbing lip costs measurable friction torque and generates heat, which is why SKF’s published limiting speed for this sealed bearing is 5000 rpm rather than the much higher figure an open 6010 would carry. A clean, enclosed, oil-lubricated gearbox running near its speed limit is better served by an open 6010 or a shielded 6010-2Z. A wash-down conveyor drive, a fan in a dusty plant, or a pump bearing that keeps ingesting grit is exactly where the 2RS1 belongs.

Normal CN clearance assumes ordinary conditions: a light interference fit on the shaft, a close fit in the housing, and a modest temperature difference between inner and outer ring. Clearance failures run in both directions. Too little residual clearance after mounting and thermal growth and the balls are preloaded against the raceways, which raises friction, drives the temperature up, and shortens life in a self-reinforcing loop. Too much and the load is carried by too few balls, contact stress climbs, and the bearing runs noisily and can skid rather than roll. A shaft that runs much hotter than its housing, or takes a heavy interference fit, calls for C3 clearance rather than this CN part.

Published ratings and mounting data

All figures below are SKF’s own published data for 6010-2RS1, taken from the SKF product datasheet.

Basic dynamic load rating C: 22.9 kN.

Basic static load rating C₀: 15.6 kN.

Fatigue load limit Pₐ: 0.71 kN.

Limiting speed: 5000 r/min.

Calculation factor kᵣ: 0.025. Calculation factor f₀: 14.7.

Mass: 0.27 kg (0.60 lb).

Seal outer contact diameter d₁: approximately 59.75 mm. D₂: approximately 72.8 mm.

Chamfer r₁,₂ min.: 1 mm.

Abutment dimensions: Shaft shoulder dₐ min. 54.6 mm, dₐ max. 59.7 mm; housing shoulder Dₐ max. 75.4 mm; fillet rₐ max. 1 mm.

The abutment figures are the ones people skip and then regret. A shaft shoulder smaller than 54.6 mm does not support the inner ring properly; one larger than 59.7 mm fouls the seal.

Quantity and configuration

Each unit sold is one bearing, individually factory-wrapped. Available stock is drawn from a single sealed SKF Explorer master carton, so the pieces share one production batch, one plant and one date code — matched stock rather than a swept-up mixture of odds and ends. That matters when rebuilding a set of identical motors, stocking a critical spare line, or standardising a fleet: every piece taken is the same part from the same run.

Interchange guidance

The 50 × 80 × 16 mm envelope is ISO 15 standard, so the dimensional interchange is universal across manufacturers — but the sealing suffix is not, and reading it by convention is how people order the wrong closure. Using the cross-reference table published in the Koyo bearing nomenclature guide, a both-sides contact-seal 6010 is designated 2RS1 by SKF, 2RS by Koyo, 2RS by FAG and Torrington, DDU by NSK, LLU by NTN, 2NSL by Nachi, EE by SNR, PP by Fafnir, and ZZ by MRC. That last one catches people out: on an MRC part number ZZ means rubber seals, the opposite of the near-universal convention that ZZ means metal shields. On an MRC number, confirm the closure rather than assuming.

Note also that 6010-2RS and 6010-2RSR are other manufacturers’ spellings of the same closure, not different SKF products. A shielded 6010-2Z or an open 6010 has different sealing performance and a different permissible speed, so treat those as different parts, not equivalents.