Hübner, Berlin, a company that has specialized in HeavyDuty encoders, is now offering a robust, maintenance-free solution through a new series of magnetic encoders that are mounted directly on the drive shaft.

Magnetic encoders that are mounted directly on the drive shaft

Measuring speed and position even for large shaft diameters.

Up to now, drives with a large shaft diameter, such as torque motors, have often been fitted with encoders mounted to one side and driven through toothed belts, for the acquisition of the rotor position and speed. This conventional engineering has the disadvantage that the toothed profile of the belt shows up in the signal being measured, that the elasticity of the toothed belt may lead to problems in the control-loop and, furthermore, this type of construction requires maintenance.

Hübner, Berlin, a company that has specialized in HeavyDuty encoders, is now offering a robust, maintenance-free solution through a new series of magnetic encoders that are mounted directly on the drive shaft. The magnetic sensing method has decisive advantages over optical sensing, particularly for very large diameter hollow shafts. It permits a larger spacing between the sensor disk and the sensor head, thus allowing larger tolerances in the radial mounting. Especially advantageous is that it can handle axial tolerances of the drive shaft (caused, for instance, by thermal expansion). HeavyDuty sensors from Hübner are available as sine wave, square wave and absolute encoders, and have already been implemented for hollow shaft diameters from 50 to 690 mm. On request, the engineers in Berlin can produce special solutions that are tailored to meet their customers' individual requirements.