The world of industrial components is vast and varied. It’s easy to make the wrong choice for your application, and end up wasting time and money. Thankfully, igus® has over 50 years of experience providing customers with the ideal solution for their individual applications. With an extensive selection of product lines ranging from continuous-flex cables, modular cable carriers, dry-running plain, linear and spherical bearings and more, there are solutions for nearly any industry or application. Configurators are available for each product line as well, making the selection process quicker and easier and ensuring customers find the perfect product for their application.
Eliminate routine maintenance in industrial applications with dry-running components
Improper or inadequate maintenance is an all-too-common occurrence in industrial machinery, and understandably so. Maintenance — and especially lubrication — can prove a frustrating and time-consuming task. However, it’s a task that can be entirely eliminated in many applications by making one simple change: Replacing metal components with dry-running plastic components.
igus® produces a variety of different types of plastic components, including linear bearings, plain bearings, spherical bearings and gears. Each contains solid lubricants blended into the plastic material, providing constant, even lubrication. This eliminates the need to re-lubricate bearings and makes them resistant to dirt and dust. Ultimately, this leads to a longer service life and more reliable operation.
Over 5000 tests are conducted each year under real-world conditions at the 41,000 square foot igus® testing lab in Cologne, Germany. Data from these tests form the baseline for various configuration tools available on the igus® website, which provide highly accurate service life predictions and configuration options based on applicationdata.
Quickly and easily select, configure and order dry-running polymer components
Choosing the right components for an industrial application can be a daunting task. Each application is different, requiring particular specs and capabilities from the components used. The selection process is made more difficult by the knowledge that an incorrect choice can lead to significantly increased costs and downtime later on. However, there are tools available —such as those available from igus® — that take the guesswork out of selecting industrial components.
The configurators on the igus® website are able to make component recommendations based upon info provided about the user’s application. Also available are service life calculations, price quotes, CAD downloads, and more. Configurators are available for each of the major igus® product lines, including but not limited to plain bearings, linear bearings & actuators, flexible cables, and cable carriers.
A 41,000 square foot test lab at the igus headquarters in Cologne, Germany is the source of all test data that forms the basis of service life calculations and product selections for the product configurators. Over 5000 test cycles are performed in real-world conditions every year across all product lines.
Maintenance is a thing of the past with dry-running plastic bearings
Machine operators have to contend with bearing lubrication on a regular basis. If bearings aren’t properly lubricated, or lubricant is used in a dirty environment, the bearing can fail and cause significant downtime and repair costs. Being able to eliminate the need for external lubrication of bearings would be a major boon for almost any industrial application — and the dry-running components available from igus® do just that.
igus® offers linear, plain, and spherical bearings, as well as gears, all made from dry-running plastic materials. These materials don’t require any external lubrication, making them not only maintenance-free but also resistant to dirt and dust. Most components are injection molded, however 3D printing is available for custom components made from the same dry-running materials.
Specialized materials for applications requiring FDA-compliance, extreme temperature resistance, mold resistance, and more are available to satisfy the widest range of applications possible.
Improve your robotic solutions with quiet, dry-running components
Almost anywhere you turn, automation is present. This is especially true in manufacturing, where more and more tasks are being automated every day. Yet as much as automation can increase efficiency and profits, downtime is significantly more costly in an automated system. An easy way to avoid some of the most common causes of downtime in automated manufacturing is to use dry-running components and machines.
How can a robot be made dry-running? Simple: by implementing dry-running moving components, such as liners for gantries and delta robots or gears & gearboxes in robotic arms. The switch to dry-running components eliminates the need to lubricate your robot, as well as making it resistant to dirt and dust. Even better — fully-assembled, dry-running robots are available from igus®!
Gantries, delta robots and robotic arms are all sold directly by igus®, as well as individual dry-running components that can be used in such applications. You can finally eliminate the need to manually lubricate components, and improve performance and service life at the same time.
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