Amacoil-Uhing Model RG3 linear drives are now available with an option which doubles the drive's thrust capacity without significantly increasing the size of the unit. To double the drive unit's thrust, an extra rolling ring bearing is installed. The Model RG3 drive thereby becomes an RG4 drive.
There are three rolling ring bearings in the RG3 model. The center bearing makes point contact with the drive shaft on two points generating the maximum side thrust the bearing can deliver. The two outside bearings, however, contact the shaft only on one point which produces half the thrust capacity for each bearing. The addition of the fourth bearing adds two more bearing-to-shaft contact points which doubles the thrust of the unit.
Model RG linear drives are available in a wide range of sizes with side thrust ranging from 7 to 800 pounds. The drives are used in equipment requiring a reciprocating linear motion component. For example, in spooling machines the RG drive moves the cable being spooled back and forth as it feeds onto the spool. The drives are also used in material handling systems, spraying assemblies, converting equipment and metrology/inspection machines. Model RG drives are particularly well suited to these types of back-and-forth applications because travel speed and direction are mechanically controlled. Model RG drive systems therefore reduce or eliminate the need for electronic controls and programming in linear motion systems.
The high thrust option is useful to production personnel and designers faced with limited space and high thrust requirements. Additionally, existing Uhing traverse drive systems can be enhanced with the RG4 high thrust model simply by removing the RG3 version and installing the RG4 drive. Since the dimensional differences are negligible, no re-design to accommodate a larger unit is required.
Eight Model RG3 linear drive sizes are available with the 4-ring high thrust option. For models RG3-15, -20, -22, -30 and -40, the drive housing is only slightly longer when the fourth bearing is added. This means that when these drive units are converted to the RG4 style, the travel potential is slightly less than it was for the RG3 version. For models RG3-50, -60 and -80, the drive housing for the RG3 and RG4 models have identical dimensions and travel capacities.
