PBC Linear Announces New Low-Profile Uni-Guide

PBC Linear brings in a new solution to low profile tasks and applications: the Low Profile Uni-Guide. A economical expansion of the popular Uni-Guide family, the LP Uni-Guide allocates the performance advantages of the larger designs—self-lubricating, maintenance-free, easy assembly—into a compact, 24 mm profile for smooth, reliable and long-lasting linear motion in print/scan, food processing and machine tool applications.

The Uni-Guide family utilizes the proven plane bearing technology of Simplicity®, which allows the carriage to glide smoothly along the slide. The proprietary Frelon liner ensures safe travel over dirt, dust, grime and other particulates without damaging the rail or carriage. Maintenance-free and self-lubricating, the Uni-Guide products require no additional grease or oil and thrive in applications where contamination must be prevented: food processing, lab automation and medical equipment.

Comprised of a simple, two-piece rail and carriage assembly, Uni-Guide products facilitate quick system integration without the mounting components and alignment necessitated by other linear slide products. These competing products, such as re-circulating ball or polymer insert linear slides, use assemblies with multiple rails and components, and require painstaking alignment to ensure uniform parallelism across all assembled rails and carriages. The Uni-Guide family promotes ease of installation by machining two parallel rails in one profile. The one-piece carriage design also simplifies assembly by directly fitting onto the rail without fasteners—saving the end user on cost and reducing tolerance stack-up.

To ensure precision tolerances are maintained, the rail and carriage of the Low Profile Uni-Guide are machined by our patent pending SIMO® process. SIMO uses a synchronized tooling system to mill all critical edges concurrently—creating consistently tight tolerances that hold within ±0.001’’ (0.025 mm) for assured high accuracy travel.

SIMO® also produces specially angled edges along the LP Uni-Guide rail to support clean wash-down without chemical pooling. The angled edges also work with the overall design of the LP Uni-Guide to prevent any contamination from accumulating in the assembly. This makes the LP Uni-Guide a perfect design selection for food processing tasks.

Available with hand-brakes for quick manual adjustment and positioning, extended carriages for enhanced load dispersion and standard tap holes for mounting ease, the Low-Profile Uni-Guide is a versatile product that can be tailored to meet the customers’ needs.

PBC Linear
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::Design World::

PBC Linear’s Uni-Guide Design Helps Team Win FRC Innovation Award

The FRC (First Robotic Competition) is put on through FIRST and used to provide hands-on design/mechanical physics and engineering experience to high school students—along with valuable teamwork building and project management skills. This year, Team 2641 (a.k.a. the Vikings) of Pittsburgh Central Catholic High School decided to implement PBC Linear’s Uni-Guide linear slide for reliable operation of their robot’s “kicking” mechanism. Installed into a system they designed, the Vikings took the Uni-Guide through a host of competitive events throughout the country, pitting their design against other high school teams in a remote game put together to test the ingenuity of each team.

FRC varies their game every year. For 2010, FRC rolled out Breakaway: a team effort game using a 27’ x 54’ carpeted field divided into thirds by two 13’’ barriers. The teams are grouped into alliances (3 teams and 3 robots per alliance). The robots use varied student-made designs to toss soccer balls at targets located on either side of the field in order to score points—the Vikings accomplished this utilizing their Uni-Guide controlled design. Teams can also score points by elevating or suspending robots by climbing towers at the center of the dividing barriers. To summarize, the alliance has 2 minutes 15 seconds to score the most points using their 3 unique and FRC approved robots.

At the beginning of the season, each team is given a strict budget of $3500.00 to create their unique robot design. For their robot, the Vikings required a reliable linear guide system to conduct the kicking mechanism in order to shoot the soccer balls into the targets. The linear guide would need to endure several performance obstacles: high shock vibration from periodic impact crashes during the game; functioning in particulate-heavy environments due to steel and aluminum filings; and fast changing repeatability under high charged loads.

The Vikings decided to go with PBC Linear’s Uni-Guide system. Using a motor driven, dual-carriage design, the Uni-Guide would drive one carriage down the slide and attach to the other. As the second carriage was retracted back up the slide, potential energy built-up—awaiting the trigger’s release. Once triggered, the carriage releases in a slingshot-like motion to provide the kicking foot with enough energy to easily knock soccer balls into the goal.

The Uni-Guide was the perfect solution. The linear slide’s plane bearing technology sustained smooth velocity control for the operation of the “kicking foot.” Containing no rolling elements, the Uni-Guide tolerates shock forces and contamination without experiencing system failure or binding. The simple, two-piece (rail and carriage) assembly mounts to existing systems and is precision machined to ensure high accuracy and repeatable travel. This reduces cost by eliminating further alignment machining and fasteners that other multiple piece linear guide assemblies require. Available in driven or un-driven assemblies with multiple carriages, the Uni-Guide is well-suited for unique applications that necessitate sophisticated control—even in harsh surroundings.

Put to the test in three regional competitions, the Vikings’ robot excelled in mechanical performance due to the team’s innovative design and hard-working components; such as the Uni-Guide. The Vikings were even recognized for their design, winning an award for Innovation and Control at the 2010 Long Island Regional (at which they also took first place). To learn more about the Vikings Robotics Team or FRC, please visit their website at http://robotics.centralcathorlichs.com/node/1.

PBC Linear
UniGuide.pbclinear.com