12 March 2013
The original drives were installed within the body of the conveyor and were connected to the head shaft with chain drives. These units had to be replaced with a more powerful solution to cope with the heavier, higher specification seating of luxury cars.New, more robust drives would not fit into the body of the conveyor which required SEW Eurodrive’s engineers to design a completely new solution. Four new energy efficient helical bevel geared motors, with Movimot decentralised control, were installed with specially designed torque arm brackets for mounting the units to the floor, adjacent to the conveyor.SEW’s Engineers used Torqloc, the company’s hollow-shaft mounting system. Normal hollow shafts are made of carbon steel which can be prone to corrosion over time eventually making the removal of the drive difficult. The Torqloc system, however, is said to require no key in order to connect to the drive shaft and remains corrosion free even after years of service. It contacts the solid shaft in only two places – at the support and torque bushings.The installation of the new drives has made maintenance much easier, as well as reducing the number of moving parts. They have been operating trouble free for over four months and, according to the customer, since installation, downtime has been reduced by 30%, allowing the factory to hit production targets and consistently supply 750 units during a 24-hour shift.
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