Another novel Gimatic product has been launched recently with the intention to replace ageing rotary actuators. Moving away from conventional rack and pinion drives, a single piston and pin-made pinion actuator was developed and patented. The end result is a compact yet robust and powerful precision oscillating swivel unit with an optional mid position stop.
Designated series RT, its main advantages are better shock resistance and a minimum of moving parts ensuring improved reliability, durability, and longer service life, compactness for installation in small spaces, lower manufacturing and final product costs.
The hard anodized black aluminium housing with its distinctive red end plates accommodates a single pneumatic piston including a rack to rotate the table via its pinned shaft, meaning, it is fitted with dowel pins rather than an ordinary geared pinion.
The round teeth match the pins' diameter and provide a smooth translation of energy from linear to rotary motion.A robust, well guided rack moves along the opposite direction and its stroke is freely adjustable from both end caps to obtain any angle of rotation within the maximum of 190º.
Settings are made with either optional rubber capped screws for soft stopping or with hydraulic shock absorbers to achieve an impressive repeatability of ±0.02º.
An optional intermediate stopping unit (RTD) can be added. It consists of a single acting cylinder with a bore larger than the chosen swivel unit. Operated by a separate solenoid valve it can be actuated when the table is required to rotate to the mid position at 90º.
Two large ball bearings on the drive shaft provide high load capacity on the beefy table which features threaded mounting holes and precision locations for custom tooling. The hollow rotary shaft enables air pipes and sensor leads to be routed internally to the table top.
The units are available in six sizes with bores from 10mm to 63mm supplying theoretical torques at 6 bar from 28Ncm to 3926Ncm.The top and bottom flat body with threaded and through holes provides the machine designer with a number of installation possibilities.
Optionally flush fitting end of stroke sensors can be fixed into the grooves on one side of the body to provide cycle signals to the PLC. The RT units are supplied with a manufacturer's warranty of 10 million cycles lubrication and maintenance free operation.
They form part of the extensive range of Gimatic automation components distributed in the UK by FS Engineering (Automation Systems).