My name is Tom Clark.

I am your host.

And on today's how-to, we do want to welcome Andrew Allendorf.

He is with the Roland Corporation.

Andrew, how are you, man?

Hi, Tom.

He is here to talk about a bearing precision level and the common types of failures found in a linear motion system.

Yeah, glad to be here.

When we look at a linear system, we can hold 10 to 100 microns of precision.

With that level of precision, there is very little room for misalignment or errors in their mounting, any of which can lead to premature bearing failure.

Well, Andrew, what other types of failure would you see in the field?

With any linear bearing, there are five basic failures we see in the field.

Misalignment, contamination, lubrication, systems crash, overloader over speed.

Well, what product solutions does Roland have as a countermeasure for all these failures?

That would be our compact rail product that is a medium precision linear solution.

This product can meet 200 microns of accuracy and address four of the five failures seen within the linear system.

Today we'll focus on the first and worst, misalignment.

When you're talking about misalignment, you're talking about when the flatness and the parallelism specs called out by the manufacturer are not met, right?

Yes, exactly.

Okay.

Taking the time to confirm the alignment of an insulation can greatly increase the bearing life in the application.

This is the number one cause of linear bearing failures.

So when installing a standard linear guide system, what are the traditional specs that are required to mount them properly?

While installing a linear block and rail system, there are two requirements for surface preparation, a flatness spec of 20 microns, parallelism spec of 160 microns.

If these specs are not met, this results in misalignment and premature bearing failure.

A standard linear guide can only tolerate about 20 to 50 microns of misalignment.

Okay.

Well, how does that compare to Roland's compact rail mentioned earlier?

Roland's compact product allows for four millimeters or 4,000 microns of misalignment while providing 200 microns of accuracy. 4,000 microns.

That's a lot.

I mean, how can Roland compact rail allow for so much misalignment and still maintain the accuracy of 200 microns?

Yeah, that's a great question.

The compact product has three rail configurations that allow one side of the linear rail system to be captured and allow the other side to be pliable within the rail in both the rotational and radial direction.

Let me demonstrate.

So this is a demonstration we've created.

This is a typical linear rail system, two blocks, two rails.

This side of the rail, we've raised it four millimeters and pinched it in four millimeters.

This is the Roland compact rail product.

We've done the same thing.

We've raised this rail four millimeters, Tom, and we've pinched it in.

What I'd like you to do is I'd like you to move this compared to the Roland.

Okay.

Yeah, you can see how you raised both of them there, too.

Oh, wow.

That's really hard to move.

So, oh, wow.

That one moves real easy.

That's amazing.

Now, when you talk about the mounting specs for the linear systems, what's the surface preparation required for Roland's compact rail?

Because of the rail design, the compact rail has a flatness spec of two millimeters and a parallel spec of 17 millimeters per 20 inches.

Well, that's a lot less surface preparation than a standard linear block.

Now, beyond simplifying installation, this has got to provide a cost savings.

Yeah, definitely.

Using Roland compact rail versus standard linear guide is about 30% less expensive.

In some cases, we've seen as much as 50% savings.

This is because if you review the standard linear guide surface preparation specs, they require precision machining and or grinding of the surface before installing, which is very costly.

Now, that's a lot of savings, 30% to 50%.

So, what do you say, give us a few applications for our audience where the Roland compact rail would be a great fit to save time and money.

Basically, anywhere you use a standard linear block and rail, if your precision spec is 200 microns or more, Roland compact rail is what you should be using.

The greatest aspect to our compact rail family is their misalignment capabilities.

This product lends itself to all automation applications, such as warehouse automation, packaging, pick and place operations, palletizing, filling stations, and even applications found in clean rooms.

Whoa, mind blown, Andrew.

That is a lot to think about with the flatness and parallelism specs, plus a potential 30% to 50% savings.

Now, that's all great info we can use when we're designing our next linear system.

So, thanks so much for coming in today.

Good stuff, man.

Thanks for having me, Tom.

I'm still thinking about that 4,000 number.

Wow, that's incredible.

Hey, if you enjoyed this video, you can catch others on mihowto.com.

But if you have any questions about this one, you can always just contact your nearest Motion Industries branch location.

They'll be able to help you out.

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So, thanks for watching today.