Mounting Variations, Benefits And Applications Of Angle Encoders

Angle encoders play a major role in industrial automation. Responsible for providing accurate positional feedback and influencing the speed and consistency of a particular operation, angle encoders are simply a more accurate version of rotary encoders. With an accuracy range of around a few angular seconds, these encoders serve numerous key applications. Moreover, the way they are mounted also grants them a few benefits, which will be addressed in this blog.

Mounting Variations And Its Benefits 

With Integral Bearing And Stator Coupling

Precision angle encoders can be mounted with integral bearing and stator coupling. In this case, the disk of the encoder is connected directly to the shaft being measured. Thus, the scanning unit of the encoder is connected to the shaft with ball bearings and supported by stator coupling. This means that when the shaft undergoes angular acceleration, the stator coupling has to deal only with some mild torque resulting from the friction caused by the bearing. This leads to an overall dynamic performance of the precision angle encoders and this torque is taken into account during measurement.

This configuration also allows for easier mounting, reduces the overall length of the encoder, and allows for a hollow through shaft.

Without Integral Bearing

In this case, the lack of integral bearing means that the angle encoders can operate without friction. The two components here, the scanning head and the scale disk are adjusted accordingly during assembly. Therefore, the angle encoder is much more compact, allows large hollow-shaft diameters, increased shaft speeds and no additional torque that encoders with integral bearings often face.

Applications Of Angle Encoders

The most common applications of angle encoders include:

- Rotary tables
- Swivel heads used on machine tools
- High-precision angle measuring tables
- Precision equipment used in angular metrology
- Indexing heads
- Telescopes
- Antennas

For more information on precision angle encoders, reach out to us at Walker Machinery today. As one of the leading distributors of Heidenhain and Acu-Rite industrial automation solutions in North America, we also offer linear encoders, rotary encoders, digital readout systems, linear scales, and much more. Get in touch with us at 905-876-0890.