In a bid to detect the wear of liners in linear systems at an early stage  the engineers at igus have now developed a new, intelligent linear guide. A sensor in the bearing liners measures the individually determinable wear limit and sounds a warning  when it is reached. This allows maintenance to be carried out in advance and avoid unexpected system failure.
When should I change my bearing? This is a question  posed by operators of the systems that use linear robots and linear systems round the clock. From the packaging machine and the glass processing industry up to machine tools — linear guides have to withstand extreme loads. In order to detect early wear of the sliding lubrication-free bearings made of high-performance plastics and  plan the maintenance in advance, igus has  developed a new smart system for its drylin linear systems.
The new smart plastics technology measures the wear of dirt and dust-resistant bearings and gives  a signal when the wear limit is reached.
An intelligent and patented technology ensures the measurement of the wear of a bearing in all directions. To do this, igus integrates a sensor in the bearing, which sends the measured data to the icom. The communication module collects the data of all smart plastics sensors, processes them and then forwards them. The user can take over the monitoring with the terminal device of his choice and, therefore, Â carry out maintenance, repair and replacement.
If a bearing change is needed, it is quite simple, because this is where igus banks on its smart bearing replacement technique. The linear axis or the multi-axis gantry with toothed belt drive no longer has to be disassembled, as the replacement takes place directly on the rail. Similar to a pit stop in Formula 1, the linear plain bearing can be changed in no time at all and thanks to a free tool, it reduces downtimes to a minimum. The system can be put back into operation within a few minutes.
