Lubrication-free and maintenance-free bearing technology in belt conveyors in material handling

Problem
psb intralogistics GmbH in Pirmasens plans and realises customised systems in the field of material handling. One such system is the so-called bearing slide unit. This is a load handling device (LAM) for an automatic storage and retrieval unit. The central component of the system is a belt conveyor that can take 4 packs of different sizes and contents. These are separated on the conveyor, sorted and pushed individually into different storage channels according to size and content. For this purpose, a pusher is positioned above the conveyor, which moves over the packs with swivelling fingers and pushes the foremost pack into the bearing. The same LAM is used to completely clear the storage channels by moving the swivelling fingers over the packs in the bearing, gripping them behind and pulling them out of the bearing onto the LAM. The sorted parcels are removed from storage for despatch.
The problem was to accommodate an efficient system with the largest possible storage capacity in a very limited installation space within a very short realisation time.

Solution
Once the prerequisites for the system components had been established, the developers at psb set about searching for suitable components.
When implementing the automation concept, the intralogistics provider now makes extensive use of the product range from igus®. The core component of the solution today is the completely maintenance- and lubrication-free linear bearing system drylin® W, consisting of the guide rails WSQ-20 and the housing bearings WJ200QM-01-20. The pillow block bearing igubal® ESTM20, which also operate maintenance- and lubrication-free and therefore save valuable working time and costs, were also used for the pivoting finger bearings. These advantages also result in particularly high system availability. Finally, the intralogistics specialist was also able to benefit from the short-term availability of all system components. As the system was planned at short notice, every day counted.