Abstract The electrical pitting often occurs at the bearing of the ro-tating machinery due to the actions of the shaft voltage and the shaft current resulting in the arcing effect on the lubricated surface and causing the bearing failure. Since the mechanism of the electrical pitting cannot be microscopically observed in process, it is difficult to prevent the bearing damage. Hence, this study uses a static electrical pitting tester with sub -micrometer accuracy to experimentally investigate the effects of supply voltage, supply current, oil film thickness, and ad-ditive on the threshold condition of electrical pitting under the conventional bearing material pairs. Moreover, according to the SEM micrograph and EDS analysis, the mechanism of the pitted surfaces is investigated. According to the experimental results and the surface ob-servations of steel/steel pair using a paraffin base oil, three electrical pitting regimes are found under the influences of shaft voltage and oil film thickness, namely, pitting, transition, and no-pitting regimes. In the electrical pitting regime, the interface voltage, interface impedance, and interface power increases slightly with increasing oil film thickness at a certain supply current. However, the interface voltage and interface power increases with increasing supply current, and the inter-face impedance decreases with increasing supply current at a certain film thickness. Furthermore, the pitting area versus the interface power relationship is a cubic function. According to the experimental results and the surface ob-servations of babbitt alloy/steel pair using a paraffin base oil, two electrical pitting regimes are found under the influences of shaft voltage, oil film thickness, and melting point of material, namely, pitting and no-pitting regimes. The mechanism of electrical pitting on the babbitt alloy surface is significantly influenced by the interface power and the oil film thickness. At the smaller oil film thickness, the eroded surface of babbitt alloy exhibits a concave crater with a few micro-porosity in the vicinity of center region with a plateau on its surrounding, especially at high supply current. The polished track can be observed at the plateau. A large amount of tin element trans-fers to the steel ball surface because the molten tin contacts the ball. At the higher oil film thickness, only a little amount of metal element transfers to each other. The major pitting area of the babbitt alloy is caused at the initial stage of the arc dis-charge. With increasing arc discharge time, the pitting area increases slightly, and finally reaches a saturated value. According to the experimental results and the surface ob-servations of babbitt alloy/steel pair using an additive of MoS2 in a paraffin base oil, two electrical pitting regimes are found under the influences of shaft voltage, oil film thickness, and particle concentration of additive, namely, pitting and no-pitting regimes. The area of pitting regime increases with increasing additive concentration and supply current. Fur-thermore, the ratio of pitting area to the interface power in-creases with increasing additive concentration and supply current at the oil film thickness smaller than 6 mm. However, this ratio increases rapidly to about 10 times with increasing additive concentration and supply current as the oil film thickness increases from 6 mm to 10 mm. This results from the molten plateau that directly connects two specimens, and the interface power is mainly consumed at the heating of the pla-teau and the interfacial materials. According to the above re-sults, the growth model of the plateau on the pitting surface is proposed at the lubricated condition using an additive of MoS2 in paraffin base oil.