Choosing Slider Beds versus Roller Beds for Your Belt Conveyers

When it comes to belt conveyors, the kind of bed your conveyor utilizes plays an important role in the functionality of your conveyor. Typically, businesses have to choose between sliders beds and roller beds. Choosing the right bed can play a significant role in optimizing your material handling process for your applications. 

In today’s blog, we will be looking at slider beds and roller beds for belt conveyors. 

Overview of Functionality 

Slider beds and roller beds are used for the same purpose: they sit under conveyor belts and help to support the product on the conveyor. However, the specific kind of bed you use will fit better for different applications. 

Slider beds are essentially large sheets of metal that are situated under the conveyor belt. As the conveyor operates, these sheets act as a stable support for the belt. The benefit of this type of bed is its smooth movement, though the movement of the belt against the static slider beds creates friction. More horsepower is thus needed to run this type of configuration, and there are other associated issues as well such as belt wear.

Roller beds are made up of a series of rollers that sit underneath the belt and turn along with the movement of the belt. This creates less friction and requires less energy and fewer drives to operate. 

Benefits of a Slider Bed

Because slider beds provide a smooth, solid, and uninterrupted base for the conveyor belt, they are more suitable for products that have irregular shapes. They are also more stable, and thus are able to achieve high speeds regardless of the shape and size of your product. Slider beds are popularly used in most parcel applications. 

Benefits of a Roller Bed

As mentioned earlier, slider beds generate friction. As such, the main reason for selecting a roller bed is to lessen the coefficient of friction which allows the conveyor to handle a much larger total load.  A roller tread uses a coefficient of friction of 5% versus 30% for a typical slider tread.

In some cases, you may want to use a combination of both slider and roller beds. Consult with the experts at Norpak Handling to get a better understanding of how to select the right components for your ideal conveyor system. With decades of experience and access to the best products on the market, our experts will be able to provide you with the best advice.