PPS cylinders by Festo offer self-adjusting air cushioning for machinery

Festo's PPS cylinder series has the world’s first self-adjusting air cushioning.

Festo Canada offers a unique solution that eliminates the need for manual adjustment of pneumatic cylinders in plant machinery: PPS cylinder variants, with the world’s first self-adjusting air cushioning. These ISO cylinders ensure that equipment runs more smoothly and quietly over their operational lives than those with poorly adjusted or neglected cylinders.

PPS cylinders help businesses take the guesswork out of pneumatic air cushioning, with a wider operating range than standard cylinders have.

Perfect for food processing, packaging

Air cushioning dampens the effect of the stroke at end positions of cylinders, reducing wear and shock. But most cylinders with manually adjustable cushioning are improperly used or ignored. Insufficient damping increases vibration and shock, while excessive damping lengthens cycle time, lowering productivity. By automatically adapting to operational requirements, Festo’s self-adjusting solution saves about five minutes of labour per adjustment.

These PPS cylinders control air release by exhausting it through multiple slotted pathways in an internal cushioning boss. As the energy is dissipated, the cushion air flow decreases over the cushioning stroke. The end-position cushioning adjusts automatically to the varying energy levels that changing loads and speeds generate, even to changes in friction and working pressure, which ensures constant maximum cushioning – minimizing the impact of acceleration and shock on machine components. No manual intervention is necessary.

The cushioning technology used depends on the function. PPS cylinders are perfect for packaging machinery with a bottom-stop function, while gluing is a slower operation that needs a short yet firm piston stroke, so fixed, elastic end cushioning works better. Fixed cushioning elements lower the impact forces and the volume of the impact of the piston on the cylinder end, but cannot absorb much kinetic energy; this limits fixed end cushioning to slower operations, low loads, and applications with short working strokes.

PPS air cushioning works for any application except those with heavy loads or extreme speeds. Easy to clean and with no dirt traps, it is perfect for food-processing and -packaging systems. Watch this video to get an idea:

To learn more, contact Festo.

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