Still retaining the 'stepped' shaft design and extra efficient steel ball, thrust bearing, they now include the addition of an "Iglidur" flange bearing, secured by a specially machined aluminium block. With the extra lateral support this new additional bearing provides for the output shaft and gearbox, they can now be used in almost any orientation, even allowing for the possible extremes of pitch and roll experienced on a passenger liner.
All are still designed to incorporate a factor of safety (FOS) of at least 10:1 and use only tested and certificated shackles and couplings. Including a jaw-to-jaw swivel on each that acts as a clutch to protect the gearbox. The output shafts are also now machined from "crack detected" steel stock, including the new "Extra Super Heavy Duty" 300kg monster that Light Engineering is working on.
Available in August this year, the new ESHD rotator, incorporates all these improvements, plus a new safety fixing.
There will now be three heavy duty rotators available in the range with Safe Working Loads of 25kg, 100kg and 300kg respectively.
(Jim Evans)
