Things To Do When Searching For Drive Rollers
A lot of material handling operations will utilize drive rollers pretty regularly. They make material movement a much safer and quicker process. When searching for some, take these steps.
Look for a Self-Cleaning Design
In order to keep your drive rollers working smoothly, they need to be cleaned regularly. You may not have a lot of time to always perform cleaning, but you don't want this maintenance step going ignored. An effective solution for this potential problem is going with self-cleaning designs.
Drive rollers that have them will essentially clean themselves as they rotate and support materials. You'll still want to inspect them like you do with traditional drive rollers, but you should never have to exhaust any real energy to clean them if they have a self-cleaning design. That means less time you have to put towards drive roller maintenance.
Ensure Shafts Are Structurally Sound
Drive rollers can be made out of some pretty important materials, including urethane, but you also want to pay attention to the shaft section that supports these materials. The shaft needs to be structurally sound so that your drive rollers don't break down when supporting materials on a regular basis.
Steel shafts may give you more confidence about structural integrity compared to other materials. No matter how many times the drive roller rotates as materials glide over them, steel shafts should hold up and provide consistent performance that you don't have to check up on often.
Look Into Hardness Rating
Every drive roller on the marketplace will have a hardness rating. If you look at this characteristic and know what range you need, then you'll be able to get a drive roller that works great with the materials that these rollers will be exposed to.
Hardness rating is based on a scale that goes from soft to hard. Some materials work better with softer drive rollers so that damage doesn't happen and then other materials are so large and have a ton of weight that they require hard drive rollers featuring a lot more durability. Find out what your materials call for in hardness rating so that the rollers last.
Material handling can be supported by drive rollers, special components that rotate and transfer weight from one roller to the next. If your operations call for them and you want to find a set that doesn't give you trouble, review every relevant property carefully. Reach out to a Urethane roller manufacturer or manufacturer of another brand to learn more.
