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Redi-Rail Linear Guide Overview
Redi-Rail Linear Guide Overview

Redi-Rail Linear Guide Overview

Redi-Rail is a great alternative to profile rail, where high speeds, precision, and moderate load applications are required. It offers strength, ease of installation, and corrosion resistance making it the perfect linear motion solution across a broad range of applications such as automation, machine transfer, and material handling. Aluminum rails are integrated with hardened steel races for a strong, yet lightweight design. Carriages are sealed against contamination and engineered with double-row bearing rollers that glide over particles. Redi-Rail is a great alternative to profile rail, where high speeds, precision, and moderate load applications are required.

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This is one of several articles that explores the properties and features of Redi-Rail linear systems. In this article we offer a brief overview with focus on our new 4- and 5-wheel carriage options and their implications on cantilevered loads and cost. Redi-Rail linear guides consist of a slider or carriage riding along an extruded aluminum rail. Aluminum rails are integrated with hardened steel races for a strong, yet lightweight design. They are also end joinable for long length applications, ensuring a sturdy design with rigidity and precision. Running parallelism is held to ±.001’’ (.025mm) for the length of the guide rail.

Red-Rail sliders or carriages consist of durable anodized aluminum with three, four, or five gothic arch rollers that are offset and trapped between the round inner races of the linear rail. They are sealed against contamination and engineered with double-row bearing rollers that glide over particulates along the rail. Redi-Rail linear guides are available in commercial-grade inch, or in higher precision metric systems that are equipped with wipers and patented side pre-load adjustment (wipers optional on inch series).

Load Axis

Fd = Dynamic capacity (LC)
Fz = Axial capacity
Fy = Radial capacity
Mx, My, Mz = Moment capacities

Conversions

newton (N) • 0.2248 = lbs.
(lbf) meter • 0.0397 = inch
newton - meter (N-m) • 8.851 = in.-lbs.

4- and 5-wheel Carriages Benefit Cantilevered Loads and Costs

Previously, a cantilevered load might require a second carriage on the same rail, or even a second rail in parallel with the first to properly address the resulting forces (fig. 2).

These additional components add material cost, as well as increased man-hour costs for assembly and installation time. By substituting a four- or five-roller carriage, designers may now be able to save by implementing a single, longer carriage and shorter rail and still achieve the same result.