Heated Roller Slip Rings

Mercotac® Brushless Slip Rings are the preferred option across a broad spectrum of industries and applications, including utilization for heated rollers.

Some applicable features and benefits are:

• No Maintenance
• Long Life
• Low Resistance
• Improved Signal Quality
• Ideal for Thermocouples

Learn about more Applications.

Find Which Slip Ring You Need

There are many different types of machines that use heat rollers for various industrial processes. Some examples include:

Laminating machines that use heat and pressure provided by a heated roller to continuously bond dissimilar sheet materials, sometimes with the aid of heat sensitive adhesives.

Tea bag machines that use a heated crimping roller to crimp and seal the edges of tea bags.

Diaper machines that use a heated roller to bond/seal dissimilar materials resulting in a finished diaper.

Machines for making personal products like feminine pads that also bond/seal dissimilar materials into a finished product.

Packaging machines for wrapping or packaging food or other items, that use heated rollers for sealing, bonding, or cutting off plastic materials.

This is only a small sample of the possible applications for heated rollers.

In order to connect the electricity to power the heating elements in a rotating heated roller there needs to be some type of rotating connection to transfer the electricity. Frequently, the process needs tight temperature control of the heated roll to carry out the process correctly. This requires feedback from a temperature sensor. Most machines use an older technology of a brush type slip ring which is fraught with problems. Since a brush type slip ring is a rubbing interface there is wear to the brushes which generate particles/dust. This wear/dust causes variations in the resistance of the electrical connection and requires regular maintenance, resulting in downtime. This change in resistance can give inaccurate temperature sensing, resulting in poor control of the heated roller temperature. Brush type slip rings also have a limited life due to the wear.

A newer technology is to use brushless slip rings which eliminate the problems associated with old style slip rings. They have a long life, no maintenance is required, they are compact and low cost, and they maintain a constant low resistance connection. Mercotac brushless slip rings are suitable for the millivolt signal of a thermocouple for accurate temperature sensing. They can be used for both power and signals in the same slip ring. A popular Mercotac model for heated rollers is the model 430 which has two terminals for 30 amps of power and two 4 amp signal channels commonly used for the thermocouple temperature sensing. One can also use the model 630 or 830 if more terminals are needed for power. Mercotac brushless slip rings are the ideal choice for this application due to their compact size that permits power and signals to pass through for accurate temperature control and reliable power transmission.