The goal of the World Solar Challenge was to cover 3,022 kilometres of the Australian desert powered only by the sun. One of the participants was Team Sonnenwagen from Aachen. To develop their solar-powered car, the students relied on the lightweight, wear-resistant and lubrication-free iglidur plain bearing technology made of durable tribo-polymers from igus. This enabled the team to comfortably finish sixth in the race.
According to the United Nations, world population will grow to 9.7 billion by 2050. In particular, the population of the cities will increase significantly. Vertical farming is considered a promising alternative to conventional methods to produce food for the growing number of urban dwellers, reliably and cost-effectively. In these vertical farms, motion plastics from igus already play a major role in their cost-efficient and reliable operation.
Users rely on ball tables for transducers in roller conveyors and for the transport of sensitive goods. Here igus polymer ball transfer units are used, because they can even move loads up to 500N smoothly and in all directions without any lubricant. To protect both conveyed goods and people from uncontrolled static electricity discharge, igus has now developed the tribo-polymer xirodur F182 for its ball transfer units. The new material is extremely durable and has proved its electrostatic conductivity in tests.
Simple automation and low cost: the igus delta robot makes this possible by the use of lubrication-free components made of tribo-polymers. At the 2019 Motek show, the motion plastics specialist presented a new version with a 10 times larger work space volume compared with the proven model. This lightweight system for easy pick & place tasks, is delivered as a pre-assembled kit or ready to install product. This guarantees quick operation and saves costs immediately.
Simple, precise, fast processes: these are the requirements of Cartesian robots. They are used for such things as pick-and-place applications, sorting systems and medical technology. igus has now developed a linear and room linear robot for large workspaces. The two new kinematics systems allow users to move up to five kilogrammes. Both linear robots are available directly from stock. They can also be customised to suit the customer application in question – no minimum order quantity.