With servo-pneumatic balancers, heavy loads can be moved at the touch of a finger. At the heart of the balancer is the safe and powerful drive solution Servo Pneumatic Balancer Kit YHBP from Festo. It offers extremely fast, automatic weight detection and safety of up to Performance Level d - making it suitable for the automotive and packaging industries. With the balancer, employees in assembly and logistics can easily lift and move both light (25 kg) and heavy loads (up to 999 kg).  In addition, the machine’s extended stroke lengths of up to 1,990 mm ensure longer lifting columns.

Ready-to-install solution from a single source

The control components of the balancer kit can be ordered pre-assembled and function-tested from a single source using the Festo configurator tool. Festo offers this kit completely ready for installation in the control cabinet or on a mounting plate. This significantly reduces the installation and wiring effort. A Modbus interface is also available for communication with the higher-level control system. Actual values and service messages can thus be visualised on a higher-level control system.

When configuring the system, users can simply choose the required safety Performance Level (b or d) and define the stroke and diameter of the working cylinder. The system automatically detects the weight of the load and adjusts the balancing force itself, even when suspended loads are added or removed. This makes production processes with a large number of variants more flexible. Visit https://www.festo.co.za/YHBP-configuration to start configuring your balancer.

The pre-assembled servo-pneumatic drive solution consists of a pneumatic ISO cylinder, a displacement encoder, a balancer valve unit, a pneumatically operated handle and a balancer controller. The controller comes with pre-installed balancer software with browser-based web visualisation for commissioning and diagnostics. A sensor interface and a safety relay acting as a speed monitor are optionally included in the package for safety applications.

Playing it safe

Ergonomics always go hand in hand with machine safety. The safety variant of the drive solution achieves Performance Level d thanks to dual-channel speed monitoring and power shutdown. This ensures it is always brought to a safe state in the event of a faulty component. Dangerous movements are also prevented if there is a voltage failure or sudden pressure drop.

Kinematics and applications

In the automotive industry, balancer systems can be used to move and precisely adjust heavy components. For example, when fitting shock absorbers, motors, dashboards, tyres, windscreens, doors and seats in the automotive industry. In the food and electronics industries, they handle the loading and onward transportation of heavy containers, packages and goods. While in the packaging industry, the focus is on conveying rolls of paper, film,  automated loading and repositioning of pallets. The drive system has proven to be versatile and flexible, making it suitable for installation and retrofitting in all conventional balancer kinematics like lifting columns or parallel kinematics, regardless of whether they are standing or hanging.