United Equipment Accessories (UEA) recently designed a new and improved slip ring for cranes. This new design needed to fit a crane that had limited space to remove the standard spun aluminum cover and also maintain the customer’s sealing requirements for a wash down environment. UEA’s standard wraparound aluminum cover would not meet the challenge at hand, so we designed a new custom solution.
To meet the customer’s requirements, a clam shell-style cover with gaskets was designed with many improvements that make it more robust, improve the sealing, and is stainless steel.
The new stainless-steel clamshell cover allows for removal of the cover in confined spaces, which allows for inspection or maintenance while keeping oil and other harmful contaminants out of the slip ring.
This new slip ring cover design also includes an encoder for position sensing of the boom angle in comparison to the front of the crane. The keyed mounting tube flange allows UEA to fixture and set the zero-point of the encoder in relation to the front of the crane.
Due to the harsh environments that crane operators witness, the communication circuits have been enhanced to improve reliability the silver graphite brushes ride on plated silver rings that are much more resistant to corrosion, resulting in more reliable communication.
We enjoyed going to the drawing board and designing this custom solution for our crane customer. If you have a challenge that needs a custom solution, contact UEA today for a quote!