Fabtech is in Orlando this year. Next week—October 15-17. Hurricane Milton is making landfall tonight around Tampa Bay. Orlando is on the path.
As of today, October 9, the show is still on. I’m betting that the area will still have much debris, but that buildings will still be standing and the airport will be operating. I hope everyone down there stays safe.
One of my long-time marketing communications friends now represents Güdel. Mechanical parts have mostly remained outside my area aside from some developing conveyor technology. I pass this along for those of you who design machines.
Adding linear motion to articulated robots is now a widely adopted solution to extend flexibility and work envelopes. But these benefits only apply if the robot runs smoothly on a track that in many production environments will be exposed to dust, soot, abrasives and fine contaminants, which can cause the track’s roller bearings to stop rotating, leading to malfunction and robot downtime.
At FABTECH booth W5029, Güdel will showcase its ‘cam follower advantage.’ A cam follower is Güdel’s cylindrical roller bearing mounted on a stud that rides on the guide rail, providing significantly increased resilience to harsh industrial environments compared with traditional profile guides commonly used in 7th axis tracks.
Güdel tracks feature a wiper/scraper combination on the block that scrapes the rail clean of debris including paint and weld spatter. The roller’s bearings are completely enclosed to keep out contamination while their larger size also enables the track to better roll over left-over debris.
Easier Servicing
When servicing Güdel’s cam followers, all the user needs to do is slide out the cartridge containing the bearings on the side of the rail. It takes just 10 minutes to remove, replace and adjust the cam follower compared to profile guides, that likely require an entire production shift while the robot is sitting idle.
Güdel also announces the transition to a no-weld anchoring solution for thin concrete conditions on select equipment. This innovative approach enables customers to install equipment in more end-user plants without the cost or permitting typically required for on-site welding.
