Ball housing band and motion guide apparatus
AssigneeThk Co., Ltd.
InventorsToru Takahashi, Ryuichi Yamakoshi
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A ball housing band is provided which can encourage increases in precision and rigidity of a motion guide apparatus and make the motion guide apparatus compact. A ball housing band includes: a housing band including a band formed with ends, the band having at least two rows of opening portions, and a plurality of spacers placed between the opening portions of the rows; and at least two rows of balls housed in the at least two rows of the opening portions. One of adjacent rows of and the other row of the balls are placed in a staggered arrangement in a state where the spacers are disposed between the balls and between the balls. The one row of the balls overlap the other row of the balls as viewed in the length direction of the ball housing band.
Claims20
A ball housing band comprising:
- a housing band including a band formed with ends, the band having at least two rows of opening portions, and a plurality of spacers placed between the opening portions of the rows;
- and
- at least two rows of balls housed in the at least two rows of opening portions, wherein
- one of adjacent rows of the balls and the other row of the balls are placed in a staggered arrangement in a non-contact state, and
- the one row of the balls overlap the other row of the balls as viewed in an arrangement direction of each row of the balls.
A motion guide apparatus comprising:
- a guide rail;
- a carriage assembled to the guide rail in such a manner as to be relatively movable, the carriage including a circulation path having a loaded path, a return path substantially parallel to the loaded path, and a turn path connecting the loaded path and the return path;
- and
- a ball housing band placed in the circulation path, the ball housing band being configured to house at least two rows of balls, wherein
- a through-hole for inserting thereinto a return path constituent member is formed in a carriage body of the carriage, the return path constituent member forming the return path, and
- the cross-sectional shape of the through-hole is based on at least two adjacent virtual circles overlapping each other as viewed in a cross-section orthogonal to a direction of a relative movement of the carriage.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.