Leine & Linde’s 2000 series of bearingless encoders for large shafts consists of a rotating ring and a fix scanning unit which detects the speed through contactless scanning. “Our customers like the principle of contactless scanning,” says Linda Carnbo, product manager for Leine & Linde’s speed sensors. “The solution is immune to mechanical wear as it has no bearings or other contact surfaces. That suits heavy industries where you normally find big stresses on the machinery.”
The 2000 series is developed to accommodate shaft sizes ranging from 100 mm to several metres in diameter. “The goal is to give our customers the ability to measure speed efficiently on any type of application where a standard bearing-based rotary encoder is not applicable,” she continues.
Carnbo explains that there are several advantages to fitting the speed sensor directly to the main shaft. “You avoid extra mechanical parts like adaptor shafts and flanges and this decreases the total machine length so that space and weight are minimised. Our segmented ring can be installed between other parts on the shaft and this gives engineers more flexibility in the design phase – they don’t have to save the end of the shaft for a standard encoder. Measuring the speed directly on the main shaft also has functional advantages – you always get the true speed feedback of the machine, even if, for example, a gearbox breaks,” she says.
In machines used in demanding applications huge mechanical forces are at work. The machine shaft has a certain eccentricity at installation and is also subject to loads and impacts during operation. “One customer requirement has been to increase the installation distance between the ring and scanning unit,” Carnbo continues. “Therefore we have created a new solution that enables scanning up to 6 mm.”
The 2000 series is made for easy installation. An example is a customer wanting to upgrade an installed machine with an encoder in a position where the machine is not prepared for it, or install it between two motors in series. A segmented ring which can be mounted directly on the drive shaft solves the problem. With Leine & Linde’s ClampFit solution it is even possible to mount the ring directly on a round shaft, without the need for flanges or other fixing solutions.
“We are always interested in maintaining a dialogue with our customers as this helps us to design new solutions for their applications. Many of our new features come directly from customer suggestions. We can also carry out minor adaptations like delivering a ring with two separate scanning units for redundancy,” Carnbo concludes.
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