The insider tip among drive technologies: Direct drives impress with their high speeds and excellent repeatability - even after hundreds of kilometers. Get the best out of your 3D printer.
Almost all available 3D printers use spindle and belt drives. While spindle drives have high forces and relatively good accuracies thanks to their transmission ratio, belt drives are able to perform very fast movements. However, both technologies come with limitations in repeatability. In addition, wear limits the lifetime of both types.
Direct Drives
Experts know: Direct drives are a real alternative to belts and spindles. Thanks to the contact-free linear motor, there is virtually no wear – this enables very long lifetime without any signs of ageing. And they are not only fast, but also highly precise: SMARSHIFT® drives enable position resolutions of less than 10 nanometers.
What Is a Linear Motor?
A linear motor can be described as an “unwound electric motor”. It consists of a fixed part with electromagnets (stator) and a moving part with permanent magnets (translator). The translator is moved by adjusting the current in the electromagnets.
As no gearbox or transmission is required, the drive principle itself is contact-free and there are no wearing parts. The only points of contact are the guides, which are generally designed for a very long service life. This means that even after many kilometers, linear motors still impress with the performance with which they were delivered.
Why Direct Drives?
Direct drives are fast, virtually wear-free and precise. This makes them the ideal technology for industrial applications where precision, mileage and speed are important.
As ironless direct drives have no cogging force, they achieve excellent position resolution. Furthermore, there is no blocking force, which must be taken into account for vertical applications: weight force compensation should be dimensioned in such a way that the linear motor can operate with as little force as possible. This also protects the load from sudden drops in case of a power failure. An active holding brake offers even more safety. With the adjustable pneumatic weight force compensation and the installed brake, SmarActs MLS Z stage comes with everything such a configuration requires for safe operation.
We Would Like to Welcome You
Please feel free to visit us at our stand 2-515 in Hall 2 to discuss your application.
