Linear slide links seamlessly with grippers

Motor-driven linear slide gives a comprehensive price/performance choice for implementing handling and assembly axes, which links seamlessly with grippers and vacuum heads.

Festo has introduced a motor-driven linear slide which packs outstanding load and velocity performance into an extremely compact form-factor.

Mechanically compatible with a family of pneumatic slides, the introduction gives machine builders a comprehensive price/performance choice for implementing handling and assembly axes, which links seamlessly with attachments and accessories such as grippers and vacuum heads.

The new encoder-equipped SLTE slide is available in a choice of two sizes with maximum load capacities of 2 or 4kg, positioning speeds of up to 50mm in 400milliseconds, and a repetition accuracy of less than or equal to 0.05mm.

Users can select from 50, 80, 100 or 150mm stroke lengths.

This high degree of performance is provided from slide units with overall heights and widths of just 30x50mm or 40x66mm - compact form factors which are as little as half the size of competitive slides thanks to the use of a specially treated slide-screw spindle.

The spindle nut itself is fabricated from a special polymer, which greatly reduces operational noise.

Thanks to attention to these materials, and a unique thread design developed by Festo specially for this application, this combination provides extreme reliabilities; SLTE units have undergone rigorous testing of over 10 million cycles and 10,000km of travel in Festo's laboratory.

SLTE's precision and high positioning speed make the new slide ideal for moving highly sensitive workpieces, such as those found in electronics assembly and pharmaceutical processing and packaging.

The slide's high load carrying capacity and ruggedness also makes it well-suited for industrial handling and assembly applications requiring strokes of up to 150mm.

The electrical drive for the motorised slide comes in the form of a small external panel or H-rail mounting module that can be specified with digital, CANopen or Profibus fieldbus interfaces.

This controller is protected to IP54, allowing SLTE to be used even in harsh industrial applications, and is optionally available with its own human-machine interface for commissioning and configuration.

A software configuration tool is also available.

These options allow SLTE units to be configured for applications using a PC, or a local HMI which includes a simple teach-in-place mode capable of storing up to 31 movements.

A simple menu-driven utility allows users to program movements by moving to a desired position and pressing enter, and then configuring velocity, acceleration and and deceleration characteristics to achieve the ideal motion profile for the load.

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