Roller Chain

Roller and rollerless chains can be used for lifting and moving purposes and have the advantage over leaf chain in that they may be geared into a suitable driving sprocket.

Roller Chain - Roller chain consists of parallel pairs of flat links joined by pins covered with rollers and engages with the teeth of sprockets. Roller chain has a better wear resistance than leaf chain and may be used at higher speeds.

Rollerless Chain - Rollerless chain is simply roller chain without a roller and is the only design configuration possible on very small pitch chain, such as 4 mm and ANSI 25 or 1/4-inch pitch. Rollerless chain is used for lightly loaded applications or those requiring only direct pull. 

The ANSI numbering system works as follows:

1. The pitch is the distance between roller centers. The width is the distance between the link plates (i.e. slightly more than the roller width to allow for clearance).

2. The right-hand digit of the standard denotes 0 = normal chain, 1 = lightweight chain, 5 = rollerless bushing chain.

3. The left-hand digit denotes the number of eighths of an inch that make up the pitch.

4. An “H” following the standard number denotes heavyweight chain. A hyphenated number following the standard number denotes double-strand (2), triple-strand (3), and so on. Thus 60H-3 denotes number 60 heavyweight triple-strand chain.