In the rush of acceleration

From pick-and-place to loading and unloading during workpiece transport or their precise positioning to vertical transport: Electric drives perform a wide range of tasks in all branches of industry and sectors. They have to meet a wide range of requirements, such as short cycle times and high precision. To ensure that users can continuously benefit from improvements, SMC has again expanded and optimized its LE series of electric actuators. With the LEFS#G series, the automation specialist offers an electric spindle drive with recirculating ball bearing guide, which scores among other things with particularly high acceleration and speed as well as a battery-free absolute encoder in the stepper motor. In addition, the short cycle time, the high degree of communication and various mounting options are convincing.

Whether in general automation or in industry-specific cases such as the automotive, food or packaging industries, electric drives are used for a wide range of applications. In order to be able to act here in every respect, above all quickly, with high performance and at the same time precisely, the specialist for pneumatic and electric automation SMC has developed the LEFS#G series. Thanks to its high-performance design, the electric screw drive with recirculating ball bearing guide in slide design convinces in several areas at once: from acceleration and speed as well as the battery-free absolute encoder to a wide range of variants with high payload suitability and very precise positioning repeatability. In addition, the choice between fieldbus and direct input types enables flexible control, and various motor mounting directions facilitate installation.

When speed is the essence

When it comes to speed, SMC comes up trumps in several respects with the new LEFS#G series: Thanks to the battery-free absolute encoder on the stepper motor (24 VDC), time-consuming reference runs after loss of the power supply, for example in the event of an emergency stop, are no longer necessary. Instead, the drive can resume operation immediately from the last position. By saving the position without a battery, there is no need to change the battery - this not only saves time, storage requirements and costs, but also disposal, which is a clear plus for the environment.

Compared to the existing series, SMC has once again gone turbo: The new E-drive not only achieves an acceleration of up to 10000 mm/s2 (+334%) and a maximum speed of up to 1500 mm/s (+25%). The cycle time has also been reduced by up to 39% (from 0.93 to 0.57 s) compared to the previous series. At the same time, users can move payloads between 6 and 15 (horizontal) or 3 and 6 kg (vertical) - each size 16 - and between 26 and 75 (horizontal) or 4.5 to 25 kg (vertical) - each size 40. All in all, the LEFS#G series thus enables particularly high performance and a significant increase in productivity.

Flexible and precise thanks to variants and control

Users have an extensive selection of usable strokes for the four different sizes: Size 16 (stroke 50 to 500 mm), Size 25 (stroke 50 to 800 mm), Size 32 (stroke 50 to 1000 mm) and Size 40 (stroke 150 to 1200 mm). The positioning repeatability is already ±0.02 mm in the basic version - in the precision version it even reaches ±0.015 mm (pitch H ±0.02 mm). In addition, there is a high degree of flexibility during installation, as the motor can be mounted either axially, on the right or on the left. There is also the option of adding a non-magnetizing locking mechanism for the motor.

Flexibility is also the keyword when it comes to control. For the stepper motor controller, users can choose from different variants of SMC's JXC# series - each with the aforementioned battery-free absolute encoder. Control can then be effected either by direct step data input (JXC5H/6H) or via the fieldbus protocols EtherCat, EtherNet/IPÔ or Profinet (JCXEG/9H/PH). In the first case, an "Easy Mode" is available for quick input and immediate readiness for use, and a "Normal Mode" for more detailed settings. When using the fieldbus protocols, there is a choice between two types of operation commands - either by entering the step number or by numerical data input. The two communication ports on the controllers also allow daisy-chain wiring and status data can be read out via a PLC.