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If moving cables in the workspace of lathes, milling and sawing machines need protecting, cable carriers must be chip tight, while simultaneously guiding the cables with low abrasion. For this purpose, igus® has developed its first foldable plastic energy tube, the R68 in the Energy Chain System® line of cable carriers. This latest energy tube offers comprehensive protection against chips of any size.

All tests are not equal

In order to make claims about the tightness of energy tubes, those tubes must first be extensively tested. For over 10 years, igus has continually tested energy tubes in the igus laboratory in Cologne, Germany. The igus test series is done under real environmental conditions for the most accurate simulation outside of the application itself. igus has developed a standardized test to move energy tubes like the R68 over 100,000 double strokes. At the same time, a defined load of chips of different sizes are periodically poured over the tube, again and again. At the end of the cycles, testers analyze how many grams of chips were allowed into the interior of the tube. The R68 energy tube was proven to allow only 0.23 grams of chips in over 100,000 double stokes with a feed of 1,000 grams of metal chips, equal to only .023% chip allowance.

Comparative testes with other manufacturers’ cable carriers show a much higher volume of chips allowed into the tube. The reason behind the better result from the R68 energy tube is its rounded profile. On its smooth and convex outer contour, the chips simply slide off the surface of the tube. The RX tube offers the best protection against chips due to its smooth contours and especially tight production tolerances: no chips got between the stoppers during the test, crucial to prevent changing the bend radius of the tube, which could disrupt or even inhibit the system from moving properly.

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