Safe guidance of hoses and cables in high-frequency welding machine

• What was needed: E4.1, E4/light and  E2/000 series energy chains; rotating energy supply
• Requirements: High flexibility, 360° rotation, guidance of heavy hoses and cables in confined spaces
• Industry: Machine tools; welding machines
• Success for the customer: The E4 chains allow compact designs with high stability. They move quietly and allow quick and easy filling. The use of the energy chains helped Zemat to reduce costs and assembly time.

The Zemat Technology Group develops and designs systems for automating production as well as welding and cutting machines, among other things. For the Magna 3D, a high-frequency welding machine with a gantry design, the designers were faced with planning a reliable guidance system for the cable and hose. A total of 14 hoses had to be guided safely in a very confined space.
The movement range on the X- and Y-axis was initially 8 and 2.5 metres respectively and required linear guidance.
The bigger problem, however, was feeding the hose and cable to the welding head of the high-frequency welding machine. This is connected to a rotary head that allows the welding head to rotate 360°.
To ensure efficient operation of the system, the cable guides for all axes had to allow the gantry to move as flexibly as possible while reliably supporting the heavy hose.

After detailed consultation, three different polymer energy chains were chosen for each axis and the rotary head. An E4.56 energy chain and an E4.42 energy chain (both from the E4.1 series) are used for the linear movements along the X and Y axes. The E4 chain series is used as an all-round solution in a wide variety of machine tools. With a high level of stability, it can also be installed in compactly designed machines. It runs quietly and allows quick and easy filling with cable and hose. The use of the energy chain helped Zemat to reduce costs and assembly time. The CFX mounting clips, which enabled all hoses to be installed quickly, also helped here.
The rotary movements, on the other hand, required a more complex solution. The energy chain with reverse bend radius is used here (RBR energy supply), while reverse bend radius chains from the E4/light and E2/000 series are used for the rotary movement. The design allows a wide rotation angle and flexibly follows the movements of the welding head. Find out more about rotary energy supply systems here.