Tech Tip: Linear Slide Family Overview from AutomationDirect

Linear Slides Linear slides from AutomationDirect make building your own custom pick and place or linear motion machine easy. Simply bolt on an Automation Direct Stepper and you are ready to start building machines that can operate in one, two or even all three axis’s using the optional adapter plates and accessories. There are three different families available in length from 6 inches to 3 feet designed to cover a wide variety of needs. The Value series is great for loads under 110 lbs. that require mid range speed of up to 15 inches per second and lengths of up to two feet. The compact slide can handle a little more weight but is designed for much higher travel speeds and has up to 36 inches of travel to handle that faster speed. The Twin Round Shaft series can handle up to 920 pound loads and does a modest 6 inches per second because you don’t want to be throwing around 900 pound loads – right? It also has a high precision ball screw for super accurate positioning and it’s available in 12 or 24 inches. I’ve programmed a PLC to drive all three of these at their max rate so you can get a feel for what each looks like. Let’s enable the demo and now you can see what the 6 inches per second max looks like on the twin rod family vs the 15 or 20 inches per second max that the value and compact families of linear slides can do. The main thing to keep in mind when ordering these is what kinds of loads and moments you’re expecting. The actuator thrust load is in this direction. The normal and transverse load would be how much weight it can handle in in these directions. The moment loads would be if you had a cantilevered weight trying to rotate the carriage in one of these directions. These stand for Pitch, Yaw and Roll – think of an airplane moving in 3D space. As you would expect, the twin rod lead screw can support the most load in all directions. And of course, with all of this movement things are going to eventually wear out, so rebuild kits and spare parts are available for all these families, along with brief step by step video tutorials that show you exactly how to do it. If you have any question, please call AutomationDirect’s free award winning support team during regular business hours. They will be happy to help. And don’t forget the forums, there arte lots of automation professionals there that love to share their years of experience. Just don’t post any questions directed at AutomationDirect’s support team there, they don’t monitor the forums on a regular basis.