Stainless steel linear guide meets the demands of long service life and corrosion resistance
Achieving a long service life and good corrosion resistance presents a challenge for many linear guide manufacturers. The SL2 system from HepcoMotion has consistently proved that by careful attention to material selection and manufacturing processes, a successful standard product can be produced that satisfies the vast majority of applications.
Material selection
In many food processing applications the requirements for maintaining a high level of corrosion resistance often conflicts with the need to ensure a long service life.
300 series austenitic stainless steels are reliably rust free but possess insufficient hardness for a useful service life in any application with regular linear movement.
HepcoMotion SL2 uses through hardened 440C stainless for bearings, but 420 series material for the guides. With guides locally hardened on the vee running surfaces the 420 material, following exhaustive testing, has been found to offer the optimum combination of hardness, toughness, durability and corrosion resistance.
Obtaining best performance
In a typical HepcoMotion SL2 system there will be a carriage with four vee bearings running on a vee slide. A key element for successful performance is to maintain accurate contact between the bearing and slide vees, in turn allowing an even distribution of the payload.
Vee faces are precision ground to a high surface finish along with the top, side and mounting surfaces of the guide. This process ensures tight control over the guide vee width, height and vee angle ensuring an accurate match is achieved.
Lubrication requirements
Bearings sealed and grease packed for life in diameters from 12mm to 54 mm match with the relevant slide section, 12mm to 76mm wide. For best performance, and certainly in medium to fast applications, lubrication between vees is recommended, supplied from bespoke cap seals or lubricators fitted to the carriage.
A wide range of greases can be supplied, food compatible, vacuum and extreme temperature depending on the application requirements.
No lubrication
HepcoMotion SL2 vee guides can run with no lubrication between vee faces but there will be a reduction in load capacity. This makes the system particularly suitable for light duty scientific applications where lubrication could cause contamination to the process being carried out.
