Drive Unit

FATA Automation has manufactured Power and Free Chain Conveyor Systems for many years. FATA Automation has hundreds of systems installed across the world serving many industries. The Power and Free Conveyor System can deal with all required equipment movements, stopping, accumulating, lifting, lowering, transferring, switching path and storing.

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The drive unit drives the conveyor power chain. It is usually installed on the "power only track", that is to say on a section of the conveyor without the lower load track; it can however also be installed on the power and free line.

Its main parts are as follows:

• An external fixed frame, which is clamped to the track and to the supporting structure

• An internal movable frame mounted on wheels (6) and (12) which has a floating movement in relation to the outside frame moving in appropriate guides

• A set of compression springs (14) between the two frames, which enable the internal frame to float in relation to the external frame under the action of the moving force applied to the chain. Therefore, the position of the in­ternal frame in relation to the external one depends on the chain pull load.

• A limit switch located on the external frame and activated by a cam on the internal frame. The limit switch is trig­gered and stops the caterpillar drive unit when, because of an anomaly, the pull load on the chain exceeds the preset limit.

• A reducer with a vertical output shaft and horizontal in-' put shaft specially designed for use on conveyor drive units

• A loop of caterpillar chain rotating on two sprocket wheels drives the conveyor power chain

• A guide section for the caterpillar chain (36), which is movable in relation to the track to disengage the cater­pillar chain from the conveyor chain. This is controlled using a lever, which operates on the adjustment screw.

• A drive sprocket connected to the output shaft of the reducer by a coupling which, where necessary, makes it possible to make the wheel idle while the shaft continues to turn

• An idle take-up wheel, which enables adjustment of chain tension with the possibility of regulating this wheel in relation to the drive wheel by adjusting the tension adjustment screw.

• An electric motor, which may be of the three-phase asyn­chronous type or a d.c. motor if speed variation is required.

Besides the above-described groups, auxiliary reducers, mechanical and electrical-mechanical speed variators, tachimetric dynamos, synchro-transmitters, etc. These units may also be installed on the drive unit. Stoppages caused by the intervention of the limit switches or because of motor failure are indicated on the mimic panel. Upon request a local signal lamp can be provided.

The two angle positions of the excentric correspond obvi­ously to the two external positions of the oscillating arm and thus to the opening and closing of the stop. The lever arrangement is such that operating on the end of the oscillating arm it is not possible to open or close the block; arm position is a controlled only by a torque motor. All the various parts of the stop are easily replaced with­out dismantling of the device from the power and free line.