Festo balancer kit drive moves heavy loads with minimal effort

Balancer kits make lifting heavy loads like wheel assemblies much easier and safer. Festo’s new, economical YHBP drive system offers an optimal combination of high power and reliability with fingertip control and automatic weight detection.

The newest solution from Festo Canada is the YHBP balancer kit drive system – delivering power and reliability with fingertip control and automatic weight detection. While servo-pneumatic balancers let workers move heavy loads with minimal exertion in assembly and logistical applications, the effectiveness of the balancer depends on the drive package. The YHBP provides an ideal mix of balancer capabilities: users can move loads as heavy as 999 kilograms with a mere finger touch.

Actuating force of ten newtons

With an actuating force of only ten newtons, workers can conduct loading and unloading, stacking, rotating, swivelling, tilting, and assembly functions in production lines. The user controls the YHBP with a pneumatically activated “smart” handle and control system that detects the direction of movement desired. It adjusts for the payload weight quickly with instant automatic weight detection, while taking weight changes in the suspended state into account.

This Festo balancer kit drive is available in basic and safety configurations; the latter variant can be configured up to the gold standard of Performance Level d, due to dual-channel speed monitoring and power shutdown. As a result, the device always arrives at a safe state when a component is faulty. Even in the case of voltage failure or sudden pressure drop, this function prevents dangerous movement.

The YHBP system can work with new installations and retrofitting in all conventional balancer kinematics, such as lifting columns or parallel kinematics, either standing or hanging. To help customers select the proper safety Performance Level, Festo’s website offers an online configurator; this can also be used to define the stroke and diameter of the working cylinder.

The YHBP drive package includes a pneumatic ISO cylinder, a displacement encoder, a balancer valve unit, a pneumatically operated handle, and a balancer controller. The controller has pre-installed balancer software with browser-based web visualization, for commissioning and diagnostics. The safety version has a sensor interface and safety relay that functions as a speed monitor.

To see this balancer kit drive in action, watch this video:

For more information, contact Festo.

• Tweet