A company that supplies furniture for a high-end retail store uses our linear guides in its drawer units. Normally, for this kind of application, a standard aluminum drawer slide with minimal accuracy would suffice. But because the units are used in
such a high-end environment, the customer wanted a higher quality system. Should someone put weight on the drawer or slam it shut, for example, the unit wouldn’t break.
In this recent application, not only were our linear guides used in an innovative way, but our engineers provided our customer with the technical knowledge they needed to overcome two design challenges.
Overcoming Mounting Issues. Instead of using standard drawer slides, the customer chose IKO linear guides for their high accuracy and smoothness. The components were mounted onto a metal bracket, resulting in unwanted friction as soon
as they were tightened. As a result, it became difficult to open the drawer.
The customer consulted us, and we worked with the furniture engineers on-site. We discovered that the brackets were non-machined, which made for a wavy mounting surface. As a result, deflection was occurring on the linear track rail. We solved this problem
by working with our customer to machine-grind the brackets, creating a flat mounting surface and enabling the guides to travel smoothly along the rails.
Overcoming Installation Issues. A second obstacle arose during installation of the linear guides. Rail bearings are typically mounted onto a plastic “dummy” rail during assembly and packaging, which helps retain the balls
in the housing and also mount the bearing onto the rail. Because they weren’t using the dummy rail, however, the furniture engineers had difficulty transferring the linear guides to the rails without dislodging the balls.
Again, we provided our customer with the hands-on expertise they needed to properly install our product. The end result is that we were able to help our customer construct high-quality, robust drawer units for the retail store. No matter what phase of
the design process our customer is in, whether prototyping or final assembly, our engineers are always available to solve simple and complex engineering problems.
You can learn more about our linear guides here.
