Improved Flex-lok™ Conveyor Skirt Clamps Add Tougher Construction, More Size Options
10 April 2002
Flexco® Flex-Lok™ Conveyor Skirt Clamps now offer strengthened design for components most likely to sustain damage in operation, plus optional size alternatives for broader applications.
Flex-Lok helps reduce conveyor maintenance time by allowing standard skirt rubber to be adjusted or replaced quickly and easily by one person with a few taps of a rubber mallet, eliminating the problems associated with threaded fasteners. By encouraging more frequent skirt adjustment, Flex-Lok Skirt Clamps help minimize spillage, which helps avoid belt-tracking problems and cuts costs by lessening the need for clean-up and repairs to tail-pulley shafts and bearings.
The Flex-Lok system features specially designed clamp plates that tighten or loosen by the action of a captive wedge. Each clamp plate mounts on a central clamp runner -- a U-formed steel channel with its open side welded to the outer surface of the conveyor's skirt board -- by means of a cylindrical steel slotted clamp pin that locks into keyhole slots punched into the runner. The externally closed, punched runner -- a key improvement over the previous open-channel design -- prevents misguided hammer blows or falling objects from distorting the runner channel and preventing it from accepting the clamp pins. Keyhole slots set at 6" (150mm) intervals let users determine locations and spacing of clamp plates.
The clamp pin also has been upgraded to solid steel from its original rolled steel construction. Captive assembly of pin and wedge helps prevent either from becoming lost. Slotted pin mounting allows the wedge to be rotated 360E to best accommodate the mallet stroke and make skirt adjustment as convenient as possible in confined spaces.
The expanded Flex-Lok line also offers a Mini Flex-LokJ with 5" (125mm) clamp plates for conveyors with confined space requirements under closely fitted transfers. The 5" clamp plates can accept standard skirt rubber from 4" (100mm) to 6" (150mm); the larger standard clamp plates accept standard skirt rubber from 4" (100mm) to 8" (200mm).
Mini clamp plates accept standard skirt rubber thicknesses ranging from 5/16" (8mm) to 5/8" (16mm). Standard plates allow the use of skirt rubber up to 1" (25 mm) thick. Unlike most conventional installation methods, Flex-Lok does not require the skirt material to be pre-cut with bolt attachment slots.
In contrast with conventional skirt-rubber installation methods, Flex-Lok's proprietary clamping mechanism uses no threaded fasteners, which are prone to seizing as a result of corrosion or caked-up fines, and often result in stripped threads or over-torque breakage. Accordingly, the Flexco system requires no wrenches or special tools for skirt rubber replacement or adjustment.
Each Flex-Lok segment consists of one clamp runner and one restraining bar 6' (1.8m) long plus four clamp plates and four clamp pins.
After the clamp runner and clamp pins are installed, clamp plates are mounted loosely on their pins, and the restraining bar is set in place across all four clamp plates. Special hooks near both ends of the restraining bar hold the bar to the end clamp plates, while skirt rubber is set in place between the bar and the conveyor's skirt plate, slightly above the conveyor belt surface. Tapping the clamp pin wedges then completes the installation by tightening the clamps and pressing the rubber firmly against the skirt plate along the entire length of the restraining bar.
Subsequent adjustments are made by simply tapping all wedges in reverse to loosen the clamps, allowing the entire length of rubber to be repositioned, then tapping all wedges forward again to retighten.
For heavy loading sites, the Flex-Lok system allows extra clamp plates to be added at any available keyhole slot along the clamp runner, as needed to counter load stress points.
