Bedford, MA -- Schneeberger, Inc. today announced an exciting new linear guideway product - the first SCHNEEBERGER BALL MONORAIL. SCHNEEBERGER is already well known as a market leader in roller guideways, which are primarily used in heavy duty machine tools. The new BALL MONORAIL is applicable in a wider variety of applications including general automation, pick and place, semiconductor wafer handling, wood working, as well as machine tools. This new product, with critical dimensions per DIN standard, is available in six sizes - 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 45 - and four carriage types.

SCHNEEBERGER is probably the last of the major manufacturers of linear bearings to enter the ball guideway marketplace. After closely surveying the available products and market needs, we focused on addressing two major concerns that OEM design engineers have with existing ball guideways: long term reliability and running smoothness.

Long term reliability of the MONORAIL BM has been assured through the robust design of the product. Three key areas clearly illustrate this:

• the carriage, which runs on a trapezoidal rail profile, is a unitized design, which means there are a minimum number of components. The plastic recirculating elements (where the balls recirculate) are injection molded directly to the carriage body.
• the carriage is completely sealed, both at each end with SCHNEEBERGER's unique double lip wipers, and longitudinally along the rail surfaces. The seals effectively keep dirt out and lubricant in.
• the front plates incorporate a versatile and efficient lubrication distribution system that channels lubricant to the various recirculating ball areas. Lubricant may be applied in any of four locations - front, either side or top.

The operating characteristic of a profiled guideway is strongly dependent on the balls running as quietly as possible. For this reason, SCHNEEBERGER developed a completely new concept for the MONORAIL BM which reduces the number of components and related transitions in the ball recirculation to a absolute minimum and thus achieves exceptional running characteristics. In addition, particular attention was focused on the run-in area as the balls transition from the unloaded to the loaded zone. This area has been geometrically balanced in such a manner that very quiet operation is achieved, with minimum stroke pulsation, pitch movement and noise for both low and high speed movements. The added significance of this design is that the exceptional operating smoothness is achieved without having to use any added plastic elements to keep the balls separated.

Another unique feature of the SCHNEEBERGER MONORAIL BM guideway is easy servicing of the carriage wipers. Normally on other profile guideways, carriage wipers can only be exchanged if the carriage is off the rail - a rather cumbersome and time-consuming process on most machinery. Our new optimized trapezoidal rail profile enables much easier servicing because the front plate and standard as well as supplemental wipers can be changed directly on the rail without having to remove the carriage. As with our well known MR roller guideway, the MONORAIL BM is available in four accuracy grades and three preload classes.

For further technical details or catalog information contact: SCHNEEBERGER, Inc., 11 DeAngelo Drive, Bedford, MA 01730, Tel: 800-854-6333, Fax: 617-275-4749, or visit our website at - http://www.schneeberger.com.

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