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Just One More... Playing it Cool with High-Speed Gearheads Gearhead acts as heat sink, cools motor at high speeds A high-speed servo drive and Alpha SP-High speed gearhead on the Langston Corp. print cylinder, which comes out of this machine for plate changes Langston Corp., Cherry Hill, NJ, a builder of heavy equipment for the corrugated paper industry, recently encountered a gearhead failure in the midst of a major project to build machines for use in Europe. The original gearheads started failing after only two months of service, causing project delays. Langston called Alpha Gear Drives Inc., Elk Grove Village, IL, who rushed them two SP140 high-speed gearheads, which solved the problem. Al Patragnoni, project engineer at Langston, said problems with the previous gearheads
began as Langston was building prototypes of its 50-in. system for the European market.
"In Europe, they run orders as short as 200 boxes, so they need to change over very
fast," said Patragnoni. To accomplish the quick change, Langston needed a high-speed
servo drive on the print cylinder, which resides in a carriage that pulls out of a machine
for printing plate changes. "We have to use a servo drive because, since the print cylinder rolls out, there's no way of getting a gear meshed to it," explains Patragnoni. "We used a servo drive with a gearhead, but the previous drive couldn't take the heat that was being generated at high speeds, and it failed quickly." Alpha's SP-High speed gearhead is designed for dynamic and continuous high-speed applications, including those in printing, packaging and paper-converting industries. It can mount directly to servomotors running continuous duty cycles. The gearhead acts as a heat sink, which helps cool the motor. It operates at a lower temperature than the servomotor, so it actually draws heat away from the motor, allowing it to run cooler and more efficiently. "It is able to run at speeds of up to 4,500 rpm continuously, for any period of time, without worry of heat-related failures," said Tim Herbst, Alpha's vice president. Since the installation of two SP-High speed gearheads in prototype machines nearly a year ago, Patragnoni reports that no further problems have occurred. Langston is planning to spec this gearhead into its new 37-in. system, now in the works. --FR For more information: Circle 623 - Alpha Gear Drives Inc. or connect directly to their website
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