Uhing rolling ring drives are a real alternative to drives based on timing belts and threaded spindles whenever a permanent reciprocating movement is required during production and operation. Applying automated solutions, the specialists also help to develop prospective processes of high efficiency and quality.

“The non-positive drive translates the movement of a rotating plain shaft with constant speed and direction of rotation into a stroke movement of the rolling ring drive”, Wolfgang Weber, Uhing’s Managing Director points out the basic principle of the rolling ring drive. Speed and stroke length are flexibly adjusted via the pitch values. The integrated reversing mechanism with adjustable stop ensures highly dynamic stroke reversal.

Entire article: Automation: Uhing Motion Rolling Ring Drive

The low-maintenance, highly efficient and easily controllable rolling ring drive is a serious replacement for drives based on timing belts or threaded spindles. Running on a plain round shaft, it can be used in many applications and is less sensitive to dirt.

In the international wire and cable industry, the Uhing® rolling ring drive has long been a synonym for laying a wide variety of materials on spools. High reliability and availability, flexibility, ease of operation and long service life make it interesting also for custom designs. The rolling ring drive shows its strengths wherever a permanent and precise reciprocating movement is required. “The non-positive drive translates the movement of a rotating plain shaft with constant speed and direction of rotation into a stroke movement of the rolling ring drive”, explains Wolfgang Weber, Uhing’s Managing Director. Without positive-locking threads, users can freely select the pitch values and pitch direction and thus flexibly set the desired speed up to 4.2 m/s as well as the stroke length. An integrated reversing mechanism ensures automatic and highly dynamic stroke reversal when a pre-set fixed stop has been reached.

Entire article: A real alternative: Engineering with the rolling ring drive

Sometimes, it’s not a question of size – but of detail. Uhing U-Clips are round clamping elements for plain shafts that, with a lithe movement, are pushed against the component to be secured. When released, the clip locks automatically. Simply compress with two fingers, position and release – just as easy to handle as putting a piece of salted liquorice from the bag into your mouth.
Featuring high holding forces, the clamping discs of the Uhing U-Clips exert a tight grip. Releasing is just as easy as fastening: Variants for shaft diameters between 8 and 16 mm are released directly at the clamping disc whereas variants for shaft diameters between 20 and 35 mm are released by lateral pressure on the release buttons. The Elasto Ring is a useful accessory: If, for example, the counterforce increases because the spool expanded after the Uhing U-Clip was fastened, the U-Clip may be harder to release. In this context, the Elasto-Ring available for all U-Clip sizes offers a simple solution. On hot days, we would like to have such an anti-sticking helper as an accessory for the liquorice bag. But this is probably not technically ready yet.

Entire article: Small, powerful, black

20 years KINEMAX KI-6 – UHING’s first rolling ring drive in a plastic housing

Rolling ring drives are friction drives which convert the constant rotary movement of a plain shaft into a traversing movement. This is the key feature of the Uhing® rolling ring principle. These advantages have already proven themselves under the extreme conditions of the Antarctic. But Uhing rolling ring drives are also used in less demanding environments – where big brothers fail, for example.

This is not a novelty: There was always a multitude of application areas for the tried and tested Uhing rolling ring drive to meet varying customer requirements and areas of application. Customers always had the choice among mechanical, electromagnetic or pneumatic switch-over and between delayed and instantaneous switch-over: But sometimes, higher, faster, bigger is not the solution – but on the contrary, the tiny and lightweight.

Entire article: Little brother in great shape

The “expansion spool” warrants sustainability and ease of operation for winding applications and is based on the known Uhing-easylock® fast-action clamping system.

It expands, increases its diameter and is then ready to take up material wound on it. By unlocking the positive release variant of the Uhing-easylock®, the spool reduces its diameter, and the material wound on it can be easily stripped off its core.
“It was the idea of one of our customers that led to this simple solution”, explains Wolfgang Weber, Uhing’s Managing Director, “and this purely mechanical implementation featuring a long-time Uhing product - the tried and tested Uhing-easylock® - offers ease of use and prevents additional waste.”

Entire article: Uhing novelty is spreading

Uhing made the decision not to exhibit on Wire and Tube at Düsseldorf in December 2020 due to the current development of the Corona pandemic that is hard to foresee.

“Protecting the health and well-being of employees, customers and business partners has top priority for us, and finding it hard to foresee the general trend until December we regret having to cancel our participation in this year’s Wire and Tube. This wasn't an easy decision because for us Wire and Tube have been major trade shows for decades,” explains Wolfgang Weber, Managing Director of Joachim Uhing GmbH & Co. KG.

Entire article: Uhing Will Not Exhibit on This Year’s Wire

5 Years Uhing Motion Drive® – Enticing Solution for Many Applications

Whether rolling ring drive in a rewinder or winding under extreme conditions – an electronic control unit for the rolling ring drive replaces many mechanical accessories that were required before. With the functions of the Uhing Motion Drive®, several specialised applications can be implemented. And all this by pressing a software button.

This is not a novelty: There was always a multitude of accessories for the tried and tested Uhing rolling ring drive to adapt it to varying customer requirements and areas of application. Customers always had the choice among mechanical, electromagnetic or pneumatic switch-over and between delayed and instantaneous switch-over: For example the self-adjusting end stops that change the switch-over position for each pass as is necessary for biconical spools.

Entire article: One-Button Conversion

To prevent the spreading of the Coronavirus and to maintain production and delivery times, Uhing has taken several protective measures for employees and customers.

“Some employees are working from their homes, and those in our offices have physically distanced themselves while in production short time working was introduced to ensure proper distances are maintained,“ reports Wolfgang Weber, Uhing’s Managing Director. “These regulations also come in handy for employees with children who are in need of care due to school lockdown. All these measures ensure that production can continue.”

Entire article: Protective measures for employees, customers, and business partners taken

At the “all about automation 2020” trade show, Marvin Kuhlmann-Kaufhold gave a lecture on “Linear Drives on a Plain Shaft” illustrating the development of the rolling ring drive and how its benefits can still be used in automation today.

For years, Uhing has been developing and automating control units for linear drives. In January 2020, Uhing was present on the “all about automation” (aaa) fair at Hamburg for the first time and was right away asked for a lecture the Head of Automation, Marvin Kuhlmann-Kaufhold, had the honour to give.

Entire article: Tried and tested technology – hardly known - reinvented

Uhing Rolling Ring Drive is ready for Industry 4.0

Uhing is the synonym for continuous development and innovation. This has been so for nearly 70 years. As early as in 1952, the company founder Joachim Uhing, by inventing the rolling ring drive, satisfied a user’s wish from the winding and traversing sector for the perfect linear drive. He launched the world’s first version on a plain round shaft. The world has changed since then. But Uhing’s approach remains unchanged.

Continuous adaptation to constantly changing industrial demands is the recipe for the success of Uhing’s rolling ring drive. In the 1950s, close cooperation with knitting machine manufacturers gave the decisive impetus to Joachim Uhing. The engineer recognised his customer’s wish for automating the reciprocating travel of a knitting carriage performed manually so far and came up with a trendsetting novelty that should prove to be successful in the long run.

Entire article: Digital Transformation

Uhing rolling ring drive makes it to Antarctic

On a plain shaft in the icy cold. The international research project BEAMISH explores the history of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the motion of the fast ice streams that drain it. This requires measurements at the ice surface but also drilling into the Rutford Ice Stream. The ice of Rutford Ice Stream is well over 2000 m thick and drilling right through it is a huge challenge.

A specially built large hot-water drill which will take up to 2 days to melt down to the bed is used for this purpose. The largest parts, weighing up to 7 tonnes, are sitting on the ice. The gigantic special drill operating on the ice must run smoothly at temperatures of -30°C and withstand snow drifting and other adverse climatic conditions to ensure the polar scientists can do their job well. The Antarctic and Greenland could cause an irreversible rise of the sea level for many centuries to come. For this reason, current results of precise measurements are of vital importance for science.

Entire article: Drive On the Rocks

Uhing Rolling Ring Drive: Application for Drip Irrigation Systems

The Uhing rolling ring drive has been proving its application versatility for decades. And yet, new applications are constantly emerging. The linear drive now was found to be extremely useful in agriculture – in devices that lay out and retrieve tubes or flexible pipes for drip irrigation.

Usually, the crop on the field is irrigated with spray-irrigation systems covering large areas. But these systems are inefficient as only a small portion of the water reaches the crop. The major part of the water evaporates or seeps into the ground without being beneficial to the roots.

One option how to increase the efficiency of irrigation is to use tubes or flexible pipes dug into the ground. These tubes feature drippers through which the water escapes and directly reaches the plants in quantities exceeding those obtained by spray irrigation.

Entire article: Uhing Rolling Ring Drive: Application for Drip Irrigation Systems

A Reason for Celebrations: Uhing's 75th Anniversary

We do not know if Joachim Uhing, the company's founder, had ever dreamt of how big the success would be. But this is for sure: even when he founded the company in 1943, the dynamic engineer focused on market niches that should provide the basis for numerous inventions and long-term success. For 75 years, the innovations developed by Joachim Uhing GmbH & Co. KG have been supporting machine and plant manufacturers worldwide.

On March 23rd 1943, Joachim Uhing, born at Kattowitz, founded the innovative company as an engineering office at Holtenauer Straße in Kiel. Having close connections to knitting machine manufacturers, he developed a device to automate the traversing movements of the knitting carriage that until then required manual operation. He devised a housing with rolling rings travelling on a plain shaft at a variable pitch angle.

This device was to be his international breakthrough: the rolling ring drive had been invented. Since then, it is used in an ever growing number of varied industrial applications. Its main application is the winding of wires, cables and ribbon-shaped material on coils. Recently, it is also integrated in drip irrigation systems where it facilitates the process of laying out and removing tubes and flexible pipes.

Entire article: Uhing's 75th Anniversary

Uhing Motion Drive® in Operation – a Visit to the Customer

In April 2016, the latest innovation by Joachim Uhing GmbH & Co. KG was rolled out to the public: The Uhing Motion Drive® is an Uhing rolling ring drive that was endowed “intelligence” by integrating sensors and electronic controller. A visit to a company operating it illustrates how the system proves its worth during operation.

For many years, the Uhing customer, a steel refiner located in North Rhine Westphalia, has been using a machine that winds flat wire on a spool. The solution used so far caused frequent problems during winding that in turn resulted in interruptions of the automated downstream process. Also, fully wound spools had to be rewound often more carefully in order to obtain the required winding pattern. The switch over points had to be set manually during this procedure.

Entire article: Uhing Motion Drive® in Operation – a Visit to the Customer

Uhing Moves to New Headquarters at Flintbek

In spring this year, planning turned into reality after a long time: As of April, Joachim Uhing GmbH & Co. KG will leave the facilities at Mielkendorf the company had been using since the 1970s. The new headquarters are located at Flintbek. To the finest detail, it was designed to meet the company's requirements.

The new modern, cubic building does not readily reveal its inner assets: Although the footprint has hardly changed in comparison with the old facilities, the new building offers an optimum for all departments charged with production. The short, fast paths in the new building warrant highly efficient work processes.

Entire article: Uhing Moves to New Headquarters at Flintbek

Uhing produces the 100,000th RG3-15 rolling ring drive

It likes to act in secrecy, is as silent as can be, and it is tight. And yet it made it big. – Joachim Uhing GmbH & Co. KG celebrates the anniversary of one of its top sellers.

The entire world celebrates when the hundred thousandth model of a series rolls off the assembly line in Detroit, Wolfsburg or Ingolstadt. Why should this be different in Germany's high North? ”We Northerners are known for our understatement”, declares Wolfgang Weber, Uhing's Director. But being responsible for Marketing in the long-established enterprise headquartered at Mielkendorf near Kiel, he deliberately goes public to announce a particular anniversary. In August this year, the hundred thousandth rolling ring drive of the RG3-15 series was completed.

Entire article: The 100,000th RG3-15 rolling ring drive

Uhing Motion Drive®: Rolling Ring Drive With Freely Programmable Control Unit

It is the latest innovation by Joachim Uhing GmbH & Co. KG. In early April, it had its roll-out on the wire2016 at Düsseldorf. Meanwhile, customers of the engineering company headquartered in Schleswig-Holstein have started implementing the Uhing Motion Drive® and were right away convinced of its flexibility and efficiency.

The system is based on an Uhing rolling ring drive extended by sensors and an electronic control unit. The software running on the control unit was also engineered by Uhing. This ensures that both components, control unit and rolling ring drive, are perfectly matched to each other.

Being a component of the new system, the classical rolling ring drive was modified because neither the reversing lever nor the pitch setting scale are required for the Uhing Motion Drive®. The stepping motor controlled by a Siemens S7 PLC adopts these functions.

Entire article: Uhing Motion Drive®

The Uhing linear drive nut RS meets the highest demands on hygiene

Industrial production involves contamination next to always. This fact is a great challenge for the food industries. On one hand, lubricating greases could reach the goods to produce. On the other hand, there is a risk of processed material particles remaining and decomposing inside the machine. The non-positive linear drive nut RS offered by Joachim Uhing GmbH & Co. KG is a solution virtually predestined for this sector.

”Not only the food processing machine as such, but also all of its components have to meet the highest hygiene demands,” says Jörg Wadehn, Uhing's Technical Director. “For our linear drive nut RS - mostly used in production machines of various sectors - we developed features that make it ideally suited for applications in the food industries.”

Entire article: The Uhing linear drive nut RS meets the highest demands on hygiene

Proven in the field: FA II Flange Detecting System

Many companies producing material to be wound are familiar with this situation: Although spools of the same dimensions are used, their individual dimensions are not exactly identical. Minimal size deviations lead to an uneven winding pattern or even tangling. The result: Increased manual adjustment work – a cost item you could do without. What are the options for manufacturers to solve these problems?

The ideal solution would be an autonomous monitoring system so the operator can be sure the material is wound evenly from start to end. When searching for such a reliable monitoring and control system, you will inevitably hit the FA II Flange Detecting System manufactured by Joachim Uhing GmbH & Co. KG headquartered in Mielkendorf near Kiel.

Entire article: FA II Flange Detecting System

Six in One: New Product Video Shows Uhing Linear Technology in Action

They are performing reliably all over the world in the widest range of applications. This is reason enough to present these products to all persons who cannot watch them live on a fair.

No doubt: the RG rolling ring drive is the most famous Uhing invention. It comes in countless variants and with a great range of accessories. The Linear Technology Video shows the RG in the “Moving Spool” winder and also with electronic controller.

Entire article: New Product Video Shows Uhing Linear Technology in Action

Uhing presents novelties and practical studies on the Wire Fair

Joachim Uhing GmbH & Co. KG comes with new product models and fascinating studies in the luggage to this year's Wire fair, taking place in Düsseldorf on April 7 - 11. Manufacturers and operators of wire, cable and glass fibre machines will equally profit from a visit to the Uhing booth.

One model Uhing exhibits in its booth is a simple winding assembly. It lets you very easily synchronise the winding speed of the spool and the traversing speed without requiring electronic components.

Entire article: Uhing on the Wire Fair 2014