Continuous pipe through motor and gearbox improves power by 80%

Stober has brought out short, geared, servo motors with flange mount hollow bores clad with continuous pipe to protect power cables, pipes, hoses, or laser light being passed through them.

The 'PipeDrive' motors have tooth windings that make use of orthocyclic linear winding technology to produce windings with the highest possible copper fill factor. This is said to increase motor power by about 80%, allowing the motors to be almost halved in length relative to conventional design. The planetary gear units can be one, two or three stage with gear ratios of 3, 9 and 27. Applications are seen in industrial robots, where the weight savings make the units particularly suitable for applications in which the motors are part of the moving loads, as well as machinery, machine tools, automated assembly machines, mechanical handling equipments and laser cutting and welding tools. The motors are available in lengths of one, two, three and five rotor segments, each of which is 25mm long. Backlash from the motor-gearbox combinations is 3 to 4 arc minutes, maximum speed is from 150 to 1500rpm and maximum acceleration torque is from 30 to 500Nm. The bore diameters are 28mm or 38mm and as an option, the flange between motor and gear unit can be designed as a liquid cooling feature. The motors are also available without gearboxes.