PaulT
Gold Member
Well, this is certainly off-topic, but not just for fun. My boss just asked me to find a supplier of conveyor side rails in bulk. At last, I get to post and read TBN on the job! I've NEVER done that before/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif.
Since so many of you seem to have lots of experience with metal bending, I thought some of you may have come across a vendor that supplies c-channel metal in different size/configurations, for use in assembling standard roller conveyor. We do some material handling work, and we are designing a conveyor to meet our needs, and trying to fit it into our budget. Rather than taking a print to a metal fab shop, we are trying to find someone that makes this exact stuff in bulk for other high-volume conveyor makers, thereby saving on the cost of this side rail.
For those of you who aren't sure what piece of the conveyor I'm talking about, the rollers in conveyor are spring loaded, like toilet paper holders, and snap into place in hex-shaped holes punched into side rails. These rails are typically only about 4 inches high and 2 inches deep, either c-channel or full-channel witha strip of the front side cut out, like so:
______
|
|
|
|_____
|-------|
|
|
|______|
What we need is something that is more like 6-8 inches deep and 8-12 inches high, so that it can contain the power supplies, and control systems that connect to the photo eyes and motorized rollers. Did I mention that this is power roller conveyor, with motorized rollers every fourth one and photo eyes to start and stop the motors? Oh well.
Now lets see what you guys come up with by way of metal bending companies that do this in high volumes. We would modify our spec to meet their product if it were close to our needs.
Thanks for you help guys!
Since so many of you seem to have lots of experience with metal bending, I thought some of you may have come across a vendor that supplies c-channel metal in different size/configurations, for use in assembling standard roller conveyor. We do some material handling work, and we are designing a conveyor to meet our needs, and trying to fit it into our budget. Rather than taking a print to a metal fab shop, we are trying to find someone that makes this exact stuff in bulk for other high-volume conveyor makers, thereby saving on the cost of this side rail.
For those of you who aren't sure what piece of the conveyor I'm talking about, the rollers in conveyor are spring loaded, like toilet paper holders, and snap into place in hex-shaped holes punched into side rails. These rails are typically only about 4 inches high and 2 inches deep, either c-channel or full-channel witha strip of the front side cut out, like so:
______
|
|
|
|_____
|-------|
|
|
|______|
What we need is something that is more like 6-8 inches deep and 8-12 inches high, so that it can contain the power supplies, and control systems that connect to the photo eyes and motorized rollers. Did I mention that this is power roller conveyor, with motorized rollers every fourth one and photo eyes to start and stop the motors? Oh well.
Now lets see what you guys come up with by way of metal bending companies that do this in high volumes. We would modify our spec to meet their product if it were close to our needs.
Thanks for you help guys!
