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Güdel Inc. (Langenthal, Switzerland) uses reinforced plastic cable carriers from igus® Inc. (East Providence, RI) across its range of automated systems: from multi-axis robots and press-transfer systems, to factory-automation equipment and gantry robots.
The cable carriers guide and protect moving cables and hoses, helping to reduce the risk of cable failure and minimizing downtime for Güdel’s customers, which are OEMs from many different industries, including the automotive and aerospace sectors.
One recent automated vertical drilling and reaming system involves a special dedicated single-aisle CNC machine for light drilling and milling of Outer Rear Spar A380 aircraft assemblies.
Cable carriers are used throughout the modular cartesian 3-axis "tower style" gantry, which consists of a stiff and torsion resistant welded steel structure. High precision modular helical racks, pinion and worm gearboxes provide high accuracy and reliability without extra linear scales.
The dual drive concept on main axis ensures minimum backlash between the rack & pinion drive. Built-in butt joints on the main axis offer a future extension of the current 20 m main travel. Integrated through a Sinumerik 840D control, the system uses a twin motor X-axis drive for backlash compensation to rotate the entire CNC tower axis 180 deg and create a double-sided work envelope.
Built-in safety features on the laser scanner and enclosed drill head allows both manual and automated work processes. The drill head contains a fully vector-controlled machining spindle with an HSK 42 tool system that applies through-the-bit MQL coolant and a modular pressure foot design.
Another system was built for a major Tier One automotive stamper in Australia who added a second press transfer line requiring both destacked blanks and material from a coil feeder. With limited space and a busy aisle on the left side of the press, the system must destack blanks and coil feed material from the right side of the press and serve as a backup to another transfer line system.
Cable carriers run throughout the fully programmable 3-axis servo transfer line, which uses a gullWing GW-342 modular transfer system with a BDS-1 blank destacker. Extra rails are mounted onto the floor so the blank carts can move to an off-line storage position and the compact coil feeder can move into an operating position with the turn of a switch.
The coil feeder has a width of 1300 mm and a maximum diameter of 1510 mm. The line runs at 24 spm with the coilfeeder and blank destacker.
In these types of sophisticated automation, Güdel uses System E4/100 Energy Tubes with hinged, snap-open lids for easy access to cables and hoses. The robust plastic chains are completely resistant to harsh chemicals, hot flying debris, dirt and dust. They withstand high loads, fast accelerations and speeds, and can travel over long distances. This is significant because Güdel’s machines use up to 230 ft of Energy Tube at any one time and operate at speeds up to 23 fps.
Güdel also uses modular System E4/4 Energy Chain® cable carriers that have easily-removable crossbars so that cables and hoses can be replaced quickly, which saves the user both time and money. System E4 cable carriers are suited to a wide range of demanding applications.
“Energy Chain is the only cable management system we use,” says Olivia DuRussel, a mechanical design engineer for Güdel. “Energy Chain is featured in our catalog as the exclusive cable carrier used in all our designs.”
igus, founded in 1985 and based in East Providence, develops and manufactures plastic cable carriers, continuous-flex cables, plastic bearings and linear guide systems.
With more than 70,000 products available from stock, the company meets the motion control and machinery component needs of customers worldwide with lines that include Energy Chain Systems® to protect and house moving cables, Chainflex® continuous-flex cables, iglide self-lubricating, oil-free, plastic bearings, DryLin® linear guide systems and igubal® spherical bearings.
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