CABLE CARRIERS REDUCE AUTOMATION COSTS

Reduce wear and stress on cables and hoses: Check. Prevent entanglement and improve operator safety: Check. Withstand high speeds and accelerations: Check. Cable carriers can do it all and even be pre-configured online, too. Let’s see . . . Added value: Check.

Jessup Engineering, Inc. (Rochester Hills, MI) began manufacturing programmable-hoist automation for the metal finishing industry 37 years ago. Its hoist systems are designed to be a flexible and efficient method for wet dip-processing. The manufacturer now uses pre-harnessed cable carriers from igus^® Inc. (East Providence, RI) on its overhead hoists. The cable carriers replaced older umbilicals that were not suitable for high speeds.

The goal at Jessup is to construct and deliver technically advanced, easy-to-use, and reliable equipment. The engineering department consistently strives to refine new machine designs in line with this mission. One trend towards higher productivity and higher speeds resulted in new system builds for the overhead hoists using cable carriers to replace umbilicals that can become unstable at high speeds. Now the hoists can run faster and more material can be processed in less time.

Rugged, plastic System E4/100 Energy Chain^® cable carriers guide and protect moving cables on the hoists at speeds between 150 fpm to 250 fpm and accelerations of 3.3 ft per second. The typical length of travel per cycle is 10 ft, with an average total range of travel up to 100 ft and cable loads of around 1.5 lb per ft. The total number of cycles is estimated to be around 500,000 per year.

System E4/100 cable carriers are well suited to applications involving high speeds and accelerations, long travels and heavy loads. They have a dirt-repellent exterior and are insensitive to shocks and vibrations. An added benefit of the cable carriers is that they give a cleaner look and improved functionality to the Jessup’s machinery, as well lending a quieter operation. They are also corrosion-resistant, which is important as the cable carriers are exposed to chemical fumes rising up from the dip tanks.

Jessup purchased the cable carriers as fully harnessed ReadyChain^® systems, pre-installed with igus’ continuous-flex CF5 power cables and CF11 encoder cables. Harnessing had previously been carried out in-house, but this process had taken a long time.

Chainflex^® cables are ideal for flexing applications on all types of automated machinery. The range includes control, data, bus, position feedback, fiber optic, coax, servo, power and robot cables. igus offers its pre-harnessing services as a way to help companies increase production throughput, improve delivery lead times to customers, reduce inventory and procurement costs, and improve speed to market.

igus also offers an E-Chain^® Configurator program that enables users to quickly custom-build a cable carrier with cables and internal separators online. The user can then generate CAD files and a parts list, or submit a quote request directly. The program is designed to fill E-Chain cable carriers that were developed to guide and protect moving cables on automated machinery. Interior separators, shelves, cables and hoses can be virtually installed in a few clicks.

A complete Energy Chain System^® can be configured in just minutes. Simply choose the type, inner width, bending radius and length of cable carrier you require. On the second screen, you can drag and drop side plates, separators and spacers into the interactive chain link. The bending radius, length and quantity of cables and hoses can also be entered, before being pulled into the cross section with your cursor.\

The cable carrier configurator is designed to be as simple as possible. An integrated control device does not allow component parts to be dragged into the chain link anywhere they will not work. This avoids the potential for error. The technical team is always on hand to work on later optimizations to the generated configuration, if required.

igus Inc., PO Box 14349, East Providence, RI 02914, 401-438-2200, Fax: 401-438-7270, sales@igus.com, www.igus.com.