Patent ID: 8419280

Claim:
A thin slide unit, comprising: a guide rail in which a rolling groove for balls is formed; and a ball carriage equipped with a plurality of balls rolling in the rolling groove, and including an endless circulation path for the balls, which is movable along the guide rail, wherein: the ball carriage is formed such that two ball plates each formed with a ball groove are caused to face each other, and that the ball plates are directly connected; the ball groove includes a load groove portion formed along peripheral portions of the ball plates, in which the balls roll while being applied with a load between the ball groove and the guide rail; a loadless groove portion formed in parallel with the load groove portion, in which the balls roll in a loadless state; a pair of direction switching groove portions for allowing the balls to come and go between the load groove portion and the loadless groove portion; peripheral sides of the two ball plates are opposed to each other, to thereby form a load opening portion causing the balls rolling in the load groove portion to contact the rolling groove of the guide rail, and form a scooping-up portion for separating the balls from the rolling groove to guide the balls to the direction switching groove portions at each end of the load opening portion in the longitudinal direction; an opening width of the scooping-up portion being formed smaller than a diameter of each of the balls, the scooping-up portion being bent from the load opening portion to curve into each of the direction switching groove portions, and the scooping-up portion directing the balls to enter into each of the direction switching groove portions; and wherein the scooping-up portion bends from the load opening portion to curve into the direction switching groove portions at a location different than a curvature of the direction switching groove portions.