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        Tool Changers:

What Gives Our Tool Changer The Highest
Strength To Weight Ratio In the Industry?

The key difference between the RISTEC tool changer and all the competitors is that ours locks at the periphery. This gives the unit excellent strength and rigidity and allows for 4 to 5 times more locking balls than any competitive models. Locking at the periphery is important since the moment of inertia is highest when the load bearing material is at a larger diameter. In fact, the moment of inertia is a function of the radius to the 4^th power. So doubling the radius increases the moment of inertia and thus the stiffness by 16 times. This is the secret of the strength of the RISTEC tool changer.

Most other tool changers have three or four locking balls at the center of the tool module. Since these balls are so close together, they must be made of hardened steel and lock into hardened steel receptacles to bear the load. The use of all this steel increase the tool changers weight so you end up with a heavy tool changer with very little moment (bending) loading. This is why RISTEC’s strength to weight ratios are the highest in the industry.

The RISTEC tool changer uses lightweight high strength aluminum alloy with 16 hard thermoplastic balls. Since the aluminum is harder than the balls, the balls cannot dent the aluminum. Instead, they deflect within the elastic limit of the material and create an excellent bearing surface. With such a large number of balls each has to carry only a small part of the load and due to their location they see even less load than they would if they were located at the center.

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