WCA January 2022

Industry News

Engineering with the rolling ring drive The low-maintenance, efficient and easily controllable rolling ring drive is an alternative to drives based on timing belts or threaded spindles. Running on a plain round shaft, it can be used in many applications and is less sensitive to dirt. permanent and precise reciprocating movement is required. “The non-positive drive translates the movement of a rotating plain shaft with constant speed and direction of rotation into a stroke movement of the rolling ring drive,” explained Wolfgang Weber, Uhing’s managing director.

In the international wire and cable industry, the Uhing ® rolling ring drive is used in laying a wide variety of materials on spools. Reliability, availability, flexibility, ease of operation and long service life make it of interest in custom designs. Uhing says that the rolling ring drive shows its strengths wherever a Mikrotek Machines Ltd Mikrotek has designed and launched a new wire-polishing machine for resizing and re-polishing super-fine size diamond dies. With the model WPF-1S, die/wire fixing and releasing are fast and easy. The machine is fitted with a ‘V-type’ self-centring and self-locking die holder, which helps work different case sizes. The top wire is fixed to a soft helical spring to blend and work on Maillefer is launching the latest version of its MED documentation software. The web-enabled MED 3.0 documentation utility makes finding assemblies and related instructions easy for users of Maillefer equipment. Each customer project is supplied with a specific set of technical descriptions and illustrations. Weighty paper binders have long been replaced with a more sustainable collection, compiled into the versatile Maillefer E-Documentation (MED), which provides ease of navigation, searching and connecting to related information. The application is web-enabled, screen responsive and multi-platform, making it suitable for handheld devices as well as desktop and laptop computers. Maillefer focused on having complete, accurate and user-friendly documentation avail- able in a convenient format. MED docu- ments are text searchable and contain cross references, bookmarks and other navigational aids. MED supports various user requirements, such as installation and maintenance servicing, equipment operation, training staff and on-call visits. Customers receive an introduction to MED when

The standard Uhing Rolling Ring Drive

Without positive-locking threads, users can freely select the pitch values and pitch direction, and flexibly set the desired speed up to 4.2m/s as well as the stroke length. An integrated reversing mechanism ensures automatic and dynamic stroke reversal when a pre-set fixed stop has been reached. The possible applications of the rolling ring drive with shaft diameters between 15 and 80mm are diverse: coating, inserting or handling in the automotive industry; cleaning, separating, spraying and distributing in the food industry; or opening and closing, positioning, indexing, chaining or winding in the packaging industry. Existing systems can be retrofitted with both analogue and automated rolling ring drives. The company Schöpstal uses Uhing rolling ring drives in its equipment for participating in Maillefer’s education programmes, allowing them to use the tool to its fullest. The package operates in two modes: Documentation mode covers all of the technical descriptions and drawings related to a project, and Spare Parts mode offers access to individual parts for easy identification. Users can move between modes using the specific information at hand (eg a part found in a drawing shown can be directly added to the spare parts request). The customer’s installation is represented hierarchically inMED. A tree structure pro- vides a synopsis of supply, with branches leading to individual components in the line. Each machine typically has four categories of documents associated with it: general information (instruction manuals), mechanical drawings, electrical schematics, and original documentation for various integrated parts and com- ponents coming from OEMs (such as motors, gear boxes and drives). The Spare Parts mode shows the client all of the spare parts identified by Maillefer for each machine, with a distinction

retrieving drip irrigation hoses, as the system is easy to couple, flexible to use and insensitive to soil and dust. “Due to its shape, the plain shaft picks up much less dirt, is easier to seal, and can be cleaned with a simple scraper,” said Mr Weber. This makes the rolling ring drive suitable for use in damp environments or where there is a high load of particles. To meet increasing requirements in production and installation, Uhing offers customised automation solutions for rolling ring drives. These range from automatic spool flange detection to the generation of specific winding patterns and continuous adjustment of the motion sequence during operation. Joachim Uhing GmbH & Co KG www.uhing.com between recommended parts, safety parts and wear parts. The search tool is used to display the specified part on the corresponding engineering drawing. A parts table associated with the drawing allows items to be collected into a basket, from which Maillefer Services can be directly emailed to request a quotation. When customers opt for MED to facilitate transmission of a parts request, Maillefer Services treats the request as a priority, shortening the ordering process. The request process also ensures that exactly the right parts are ordered. Maillefer Extrusion Oy www.maillefer.net VOEDKM/AWCMA 13 Austrian AWCMA (Austrian Wire & Cable Machinery Manufacturers Association) specialist firms are available to apply technology to the solution of any wire and cable production problems, and will display their products within the Austrian Pavilion in Hall 10 and on individual stands in adjacent halls. Read the full story in the March issue

the die angles and bearing length. Read the full story in the March issue Easier-to-use documentation software

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January 2022