Modular Conveyor Belt Patents

[WoodyPE]

I'd like a better understanding of technical leadership in the modular belt market. Some of the big players are Habasit and Interlok.

I'm studying a recent patent by Habasit:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...50&s1=7331447.PN.&OS=PN/7331447&RS=PN/7331447

What impact will this new rod design have on the marketplace?

Are the improvements overstated, including the following items:

"The retention of the pivot rod is an important feature of the modular plastic conveyor belts. Rod retention can be accomplished by enlarging the heads of the pivot rods at both ends but such would not allow for disassembly without destroying the rod head. Headless rods have been used for easier production and belt assembly. These type of rods must be blocked at both ends of the belt during use. In addition headless rods are often difficult to remove for disassembly.

One approach to rod retention is to have a head at one end of a rod and a headless section at the opposite end. The headed rod is furnished with a rod retaining ring disposed on the shaft at a distance from the head portion of the rod. The rod is inserted through the pivot holes of the module links, which are all exactly the same diameter. The retaining ring is just a little bit larger in diameter than the pivot hole of the outermost link, such that the ring may be forced through the pivot hole of the outermost link end and is able to expand behind the link. In this arrangement the rod is kept firmly in position by the retaining ring. The system described above has the drawback that it requires tight tolerances of the hole diameter of the outermost link and the retaining ring diameter."

What is needed is a device that makes the above-described tolerances less critical."

How hard is it to remove a headless rod?

Is this new rod design easy to remove? If so can it come out on its own?

Won't the final product cost more that incorporates this design modification?

 

[MikeHalloran]

Headless rods are used as wristpins in some engines. You need a press to get them out. You could do the same thing with a metal rod in a plastic belt link, but you'd still need a press to remove the rod, at least the first time.

My browser blew up while attempting to load the patent office's plug-in, so I have no idea what the thing looks like... but I have seen rods similar to what the text describes in other contexts. E.g. a groove in the end of a pin, and a partial ring in the groove that compresses as it's pushed into the first hole, then re-expands as it exits the last. You might be able to drive it backwards, but it wouldn't fall out, and if it's really tight, you'd have to drive a tube over it to compress the ring for removal.

For examples that are topologically related, look at the snap-in tube retainers that are used on gasoline filters and air conditioners these days.

All of this stuff gets really cheap when you mass- produce it. The hard part is making the machine to make the pins... and you can probably buy something adaptable at a machinery auction if you look hard enough.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[WoodyPE]

Thanks Mike.

The pin has a small flange on the end and a circumferential ring for a press fit into the hole: