What’s the Difference Between Cam Followers and Roller Followers?

Cam and roller followers are similar, but there’s one major difference: roller followers are mounted on an existing shaft, while cam followers already have a shaft attached.

Cam followers have a built-in shaft with a grooved end that allows you to screw the part directly into a piece of metal or some other surface. Roller followers, also known as track rollers, require an application to have a shaft or other similar mounting piece as part of its design. You would then need to match the diameter of that housing with the right roller follower.

Cam followers are compact and high rigid bearings with a stud. They are available in Steel or Stainless Steel. Cam followers are designed with a thick walled outer ring in order to provide high rigidity, ensuring heavy load or impact load at the contact portion with the track. The outer rings are available in two shapes, a crowned outer ring and a cylindrical outer ring. The crowned outer ring is ideal for absorbing eccentric load and the cylindrical outer ring is ideal for heavy duty applications because it connects with the large contact area of the associated objects, so it can mitigate the surface pressure.

Ritbearing offers leading cam followers, with pre-installed grease nipples, that are ready-to-use instantly and include a hexagon socket shaped stud head and thread side for unlimited mounting locations. We offer the following models of cam followers to meet your design and application needs:

• CF..AB (Standard Type)
• CF..MAB (Stainless Type)
• CFH..AB (Eccentric Type)
• CFH..MAB (Eccentric Stainless Type)
• NUCF..AB (Double Row Cylindrical Roller Type)

Cam Followers require a machined mounting hole to eliminate movement at the fitting location, especially when it’s subjected to impact shock due to its usage in cantilevered mounting. A cam follower’s permissive load is subject to change depending on the bending strength and shear strength of its stud and the standard rating load of the needle bearing. All JNS cam followers are pre-lubricated with high quality lithium soap based grease grade 2, maintaining RoHS compliance, and are ready to use. For more advanced debris protection, products are available using synthetic rubber with high abrasion resistance.

A roller follower is a type of bearing with an integrated “roller” featuring high rigidity and is available in steel or stainless steel. Its primary application is as a guide roller, traveling in a tangent linear motion by rotating its outer ring. The outer ring of a roller follower is designed with a thick ring, providing high rigidity to endure heavy load or impact load at the contact location with associated objects.

There are two main types of roller followers, a separate type and a non-separate type. Like the name suggests, a separate type roller follower has a separated inner ring and outer ring and a non-separate type roller follower has an inner ring with a fixed side plate. Roller followers also have two main types of outer rings, a crowned outer ring and a cylindrical outer ring. The crowned outer ring is ideal for absorbing eccentric load since it absorbs angular misalignment due to a mount error. The cylindrical outer ring is more effective for heavy duty loads because it contacts a larger area of the associated objects and mitigates the surface pressure. They have two internal mechanisms, one with a cage and one with a full complement. A roller follower with a cage mechanism is ideal for high speed applications because the cage guides the rotation of the rollers, making it stable. A full complement type roller follower is effective in applications with low-speed operation of heavy loads due to its larger load rating. Full complement type roller followers also include double-row cylindrical roller types, which allow for moderate axial loading. Ritbearing offers the following models of cam followers to meet your design and application needs:

• RNAST (Separable Type)
• NAST (Separable Type)
• NAST-ZZ (Separable Type)
• NART-R (Non-Separable Type)
• NURT-R (Non-Separable Type)

For separable type roller followers without an inner ring, there is a tolerance grade of k5, k6 for the mounting shaft. For separable type roller followers with an inner ring, non-separable type roller followers, and double row cylindrical roller followers, there is a tolerance of g6,h6 for the mounting shaft. All JNS roller followers are pre-lubricated with high quality lithium soap based grease grade 2, maintaining RoHS compliance, and are ready to use. For more advanced debris protection, products are available using synthetic rubber with high abrasion resistance.