Electric actuators displace pneumatics
SMAC Europe is introducing its new CA range of electric cylinders. Starting with 25mm and 35mm diameter actuators, the range will ultimately consist of cylinders from 8mm diameter up to 100mm diameter with stroke lengths of up to 100mm.
They have been designed to accept a wide variety of mounting options that include ISO, DIN, VDMA, CETOP, JFPA and NFPA standards and dimensions. This enables the direct replacement of existing pneumatic cylinders and retrofitting without any machine modifications being required.
The electric cylinders are manufactured from high-grade stainless steel with a minimum wall thickness of 1.5mm, making them extremely robust when compared with traditional thin-walled pneumatic cylinders. They also incorporate non-rotating piston rods as standard, and they are sealed to IP54, with IP65 and IP67 available upon request. They are also CE marked.
These features make them suitable for converting conventional pneumatic applications to electric where exceptionally high speed, cycle life, precision and accuracy are necessary. Due to the innovative design and construction, the actuators can deliver accelerations of up to 40g, and they are designed to offer a life expectancy of around 100million cycles with a minimum.
1-5 micron resolution
Based on proprietary SMAC moving coil actuator (MCA) technology, which is covered by multiple patent applications, the actuators are offered with a choice of encoder resolutions from 1-5um to satisfy a variety of industrial, scientific, motion control and QC/measuring applications. As with all SMAC actuators, the cylinders enable free and independent control of velocity, position and force simultaneously.
In addition, the SMAC patented Softland function provides a delicate and controlled force profile when landing on fragile components. The cylinders also give 100 per cent data feedback of all operations as standard. As a result, no external switches or sensors are required to detect cylinder movement or position. This enables a radical reduction of any external wiring and significantly reduces cost. The electric cylinders also have a low power consumption of 1.8A at 24V, making them highly energy efficient, and, when compared with pneumatic technology, they are extremely quiet.
The electric cylinders are suitable for very demanding applications such as packaging, bottling, labelling, filling, parts handling, measuring and QC testing - to name but a few.
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