FAGL15RA700YPThin Section Angular Contact Ball Bearing 7.000 x 7.625 x 5/16 in, Type A Single-Direction Thrust, Open, Brass Separator

Product Description

What this part is

This is a thin section (light section) angular contact ball bearing measuring 7.000 in bore x 7.625 in outside diameter x 5/16 in (0.3125 in) wide. It belongs to the inch-envelope thin section family that most engineers know by the Kaydon Reali-Slim and Silverthin part-number systems, and it is the direct equivalent of Kaydon KB070AR0 and Silverthin SB070AR0. It is an open bearing — no seals, no shields — with a single row of 5/32 in balls carried in a one-piece machined brass pocket separator, built to ABEC Class 1.

Decoding the designation

L — thin section / light section bearing family15 — cross-section code for the 5/16 in x 5/16 in square section, the same envelope as the Kaydon “B” and Silverthin “B” sectionR — open, unsealed, with a retainer (separator)A — angular contact, single row, thrust-capable in one direction (Type A)700 — bore in hundredths of an inch, so 7.000 inYP — FAG separator suffix for a one-piece machined pocket-type brass separator, the same construction the trailing R0 denotes in Kaydon KB070AR0 and Silverthin SB070AR0

The square cross section, proved from the numbers

Outside diameter minus bore is 7.625 − 7.000 = 0.625 in, which is 0.3125 in of wall on each side of the bearing. That is exactly the 5/16 in race width, so the cross section is a true 5/16 x 5/16 in square. This arithmetic is worth checking because it removes any doubt about the dimensions without needing a datasheet in hand: if the wall per side equals the width, you are looking at the correct thin section envelope. The 5.000 in bore sibling in this same series works out identically — 5.625 − 5.000 = 0.625 in — because the section stays constant while the diameter changes.

What these specs mean in practice

A thin section bearing trades load capacity for envelope and mass. You accept a much lower rating than a conventional ball bearing of the same outside diameter in exchange for a very small radial wall and a very large open bore. The design driver is almost always something that has to pass through the middle: a hollow shaft, a cable bundle, a slip ring, a laser path, a coolant line. That is why these bearings dominate robotics joints, gimbals, rotary and index tables, medical imaging gantries, semiconductor wafer handlers, and optical and radar positioners.

Note that the balls in this 7.000 in bore bearing are 5/32 in diameter — exactly the same as in the 5.000 in bore size. Thin section series hold ball diameter constant across the whole bore range and simply add more balls as the pitch circle grows. That is why capacity climbs only modestly with diameter rather than scaling the way it does in a conventional bearing family, and it is why you should size on the published rating rather than on the bearing looking large.

Published ratings and mounting data

Static radial load capacity: 3,450 lbfDynamic radial load capacity: 1,185 lbfStatic thrust load capacity: 9,960 lbfDynamic thrust load capacity: 2,980 lbfLand diameters: L1 7.231 in, L2 7.393 in, L3 7.456 inBall diameter: 5/32 inMaximum fillet radius cleared: 0.040 inRace width tolerance: +0.000 / −0.005 inPrecision: ABEC Class 1Weight: 0.50 lb

Those radial and thrust numbers are not additive. A bearing carrying radial and thrust load at the same time must be checked against a combined-load calculation; comparing your resultant against either column on its own will overstate what the bearing can do. Ball count and nominal contact angle are not published for this part, so they are deliberately left out of the specification table rather than guessed. Kaydon Type A geometry is generally described as roughly 30°, but that figure does not appear on the published datasheet and should be treated as unverified.

Quantity and configuration

Five pieces are on hand. Thin section bearings normally move as single-piece spares, so a lot of five is unusual and useful: it lets you fit several axes of one machine, or hold same-batch spares alongside the installed bearing. Central Surplus also stocks the 5.000 in bore sibling from this same series, L15RA500YP (Kaydon KB050AR0 / Silverthin SB050AR0), with twelve pieces on hand — so a machine using both sizes can be matched from one source.

Fitting notes

Because the rings are thin, they are flexible. A thin section bearing will faithfully take on the out-of-roundness of whatever you clamp it into, and that is by far the most common cause of premature failure in this product class. Housing bores and shaft seats must be machined round and flat to a tighter standard than a conventional bearing would tolerate, the surrounding structure needs to be rigid, and clamping load must be applied uniformly around the circumference rather than through a few bolts. The 0.040 in maximum fillet radius must be respected at the shaft and housing shoulders.

Type A angular contact carries thrust in one direction only. If your application reverses thrust, a single Type A bearing will unload on the reverse stroke; you need a duplex pair (BR0 back-to-back or FR0 face-to-face) or a four-point contact bearing (XP0) instead. And because this bearing is open, it ships with no lubricant retention at all — grease selection, retention and sealing are the responsibility of the surrounding design.

Interchange guidance

Direct equivalents: Kaydon KB070AR0, Silverthin SB070AR0, INA CSEB070, SKF FPAB700, NSK NBA17707, NTN KYB070, SSB RB070AR0, RBC KB070AR0. FAG and INA are both Schaeffler Group brands, so the INA CSEB070 reference is the in-house sibling rather than a third-party substitute.

Related but functionally different, and not substitutes: SB070CP0 (radial contact), SB070XP0 (four-point contact), SB070BR0 (duplex back-to-back) and SB070FR0 (duplex face-to-face). Unlike the 5.000 in bore size, no sealed variant is catalogued at 7.000 in bore.