JP2006336687A - Rectilinear guide device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a rectilinear guide device capable of maintaining the integrity of rolling elements over a long period. <P>SOLUTION: Guide rails 11A and 11b are connected to each other so that a step between rolling element rolling grooves 14 at the joint part of the guide rails 11A and 11B is less than 0.01 time the diameter of the rolling elements to prevent a step which may damage the rolling elements 17 from occurring at the joint part between the guide rails 11A and 11B. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a linear motion guide device used in an industrial machine such as a machine tool, and more particularly to an improvement of a linear motion guide device in which rolling element rolling grooves are formed on a surface of a guide rail used in a joint specification by plastic working. .

  In general, a rolling element rolling groove (hereinafter referred to as “rail groove”) for rolling the rolling element in the longitudinal direction of the rail is formed on the rail surface of the linear motion guide device. The rail groove is formed by grinding the rail surface with a grinding wheel. However, forming the rail groove by such a method causes an increase in cost. Therefore, in order to suppress an increase in cost, there has been proposed a method of forming the rail groove by plastic working such as drawing, pressing, forging, and rolling.

However, if the rail groove is formed by plastic working, the shape accuracy of the rail groove is reduced. Therefore, even if it can be handled by a single rail, the joint specification that uses multiple guide rails in succession will cause a rail groove shape accuracy error. Bending and rail mounting accuracy errors are added. For this reason, there is a problem that a step of the rail groove is generated at the joint portion of the rail and the soundness of the linear motion guide device is remarkably impaired by the rolling element colliding with the step.
The present invention has been made paying attention to such problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a linear motion guide device that can maintain the soundness of rolling elements over a long period of time.

  In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a linear motion guide device having rolling element rolling grooves formed by plastic processing of rail surfaces on the surfaces of a plurality of linearly connected guide rails. The step of the rolling element rolling groove in the joint portion of the guide rail is 0.01 times or less of the diameter of the rolling element rolling in the rolling element rolling groove.

  According to the present invention, by joining the guide rail so that the step of the rolling element rolling groove in the joint portion of the guide rail is 0.01 times or less of the diameter of the rolling element rolling in the rolling element rolling groove, Since it is possible to prevent a step that damages the rolling elements from occurring in the joint portion of the guide rail, the soundness of the linear motion guide device can be maintained for a long time even when the guide rail is used in a joint specification.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
1 to 3 show a first embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 1 is a plan view of a linear motion guide device according to the first embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a II-II cross section of FIG. FIG. In FIG. 1, reference numerals 11A and 11B denote guide rails of the linear motion guide device, and a plurality of rail mounting holes 12 are equally spaced in the longitudinal direction of the guide rails 11A and 11B on the upper surface of the guide rails 11A and 11B. Is provided. These rail mounting holes 12 penetrate the guide rails 11A and 11B in the height direction. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, each rail mounting hole 12 is provided with the guide rails 11A and 11B. Rail fixing bolts 13 for fixing to a stand or the like are inserted.

  Two rows of rolling element rolling grooves 14 are formed on the left and right side portions of the guide rails 11A and 11B, respectively. These rolling element rolling grooves 14 are formed on the left and right side surfaces of the guide rails 11A and 11B by applying plastic working such as drawing, pressing, forging, and rolling to the guide rails 11A and 11B. Further, the rolling element rolling grooves 14 are respectively opposed to the rolling element rolling grooves 16 (see FIG. 2) provided in the slider 15, and between the rolling element rolling grooves 14 and the rolling element rolling grooves 16. Is formed with a rolling element rolling path for rolling the rolling element 17 in the longitudinal direction of the guide rail 11.

The slider 15 includes a slider body 18 having sleeve portions 18 a on both sides of the guide rail 11, and two end caps 19 attached to the front end surface portion and the rear end surface portion of the slider body 18. A side seal 20 is attached to seal a gap formed between the guide rail 11 and the end cap 19.
A plurality of rolling element return paths 21 are provided through the sleeve 18 a of the slider body 18. These rolling element return paths 21 communicate with a U-shaped direction changing path 22 formed in the end cap 19, and accordingly, the rolling elements between the rolling element rolling grooves 14 and the rolling element rolling grooves 16. The rolling element 17 that has rolled on the rolling path is changed in the direction changing path 22 and then introduced into the rolling element return path 21. Then, the rolling element 17 introduced into the rolling element return path 21 rolls through the rolling element return path 21, then is introduced into the rolling element rolling path via the direction changing path 22, and circulates through the above-described path. Yes.

3 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line III-III of FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 3, the guide rails 11A and 11B have stepped portions a, b, and c of the rolling element rolling grooves 14 at their joints. It is connected in a straight line so as to be 0.01 times or less of the diameter.
In this way, the guide rails 11A and 11B are connected so that the steps a, b, and c of the rolling element rolling grooves 14 at the joints of the guide rails 11A and 11B are 0.01 times or less the diameter of the rolling element 17. Thus, it is possible to prevent a step that damages the rolling element 17 from occurring at the joint portion of the guide rails 11A and 11B. As a result, as shown in FIG. 4, since the ratio of the actual life to the calculated life of the linear motion guide device is 1Lh or more, the soundness of the linear motion guide device is maintained over a long period of time even when the guide rail is used in a joint specification. can do.

  In the above-described embodiment, the rolling element is exemplified as a spherical element. However, the rolling element is not limited to this. For example, a cylindrical element may be used as the rolling element. Further, in the above-described embodiment, the case where the present invention is applied to the linear motion guide device having two rows of rolling element rolling grooves on each of the left and right sides of the guide rail is shown. The present invention can also be applied to a linear motion guide device (see FIGS. 5 and 6) having one or three or more rolling element rolling grooves on the left and right sides of the rail.

It is a top view of the linear motion guide apparatus which concerns on the 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is II-II sectional drawing of FIG. FIG. 3 is a sectional view taken along line III-III in FIG. 1. It is a figure which shows the relationship between the rail groove level | step difference of a rail joint part, and the real life ratio with respect to the calculation life of a linear motion guide apparatus. It is a partial front view of the linear motion guide device which has a row of rolling element rolling groove on each of the left and right sides of the guide rail. It is a front view of the linear motion guide apparatus which has three rows of rolling element rolling grooves in the left-right both sides of a guide rail, respectively.

Explanation of symbols

11, 11A, 11B Guide rail 12 Rail mounting hole 13 Rail fixing bolt 14 Rolling body rolling groove 15 Slider 16 Rolling body rolling groove 17 Rolling body 18 Slider body 19 End cap 20 Side seal 21 Rolling body return path 22 Direction change Road

Claims (1)

In a linear motion guide device having rolling element rolling grooves formed by plastic processing of the rail surface on the surface of a plurality of guide rails connected linearly,
The linear guide apparatus characterized in that a step of the rolling element rolling groove in the joint portion of the guide rail is 0.01 times or less of a diameter of the rolling element rolling in the rolling element rolling groove.

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