In the same way inverter drives have come to dominate the drives market, so roller screw actuators are rapidly winning market share from ball screw, pneumatic and hydraulic actuators. This is because roller screw technology offers significant benefits in terms of life, accuracy, robustness, load capacity and compactness.
Where ball screws are limited to around 2000 rpm, roller screws can work at 5000 revs and higher, producing much higher linear travel rates. The number of contact points in a ball screw is limited by the ball size. Planetary roller screw designs provide many more contact points and thus have higher load carrying capacity and improved stiffness. In practical terms then, Olsen Engineering’s roller screw servo linear actuators take up much less space for a given load rating and can outlive ball screw models by up to 15 times.
Olsen’s new Tritex series of servo linear actuators, with patented inverted roller screw technology, offer the ultimate in compactness and convenience by incorporating a brushless servo motor, servo amplifier and position controller in a single industrial grade enclosure. This eliminates the expensive and failure prone inter-connections normally associated with typical servo system. Concerns over component selection and compatibility are eliminated, as are installation problems and de-bugging.
The units can be programmed to respond to analogue command signals making it ideal for controlling valves and dampers in process control applications. The in-built motion control software, with user friendly drop-down boxes, enables sequences to be created whereby pushing forces can be pre-programmed to trigger events such as stopping or retraction making Tritex units ideal for assembly, test and pressing applications.
Despite the compactness of the 3inch IP54 frame size, strokes up to 18ins are available and a peak thrust capacity of 10,000 N. This represents a convenient and robust all-electric alternative to hydraulic or pneumatic actuators, especially for arduous environments and where space is at a premium.
The robustness and long life of roller screw actuators has been so well proven that they have even been selected for use in military applications, on the most advanced ships and battlefield tanks and guns. In comparison, industrial applications are child’s play.
With products ranging in frame sizes from 50mm to 200mm, force ratings up to 288kN, and linear velocities up to 1.5m/sec with 3µm accuracy and a zero backlash option, when push comes to shove, Olsen Engineering has the answer.