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Swivellink mounting brackets

Swivellink is an American company that designs and manufactures various types of components for industrial applications. From the point of view of the machine vision applications, mounting brackets can be often a quite decisive element of whole system due to adjustment needs and ease of installation or maintenance. Thanks to dedicated mounting systems, it is possible to obtain the precise target position of the camera in relation to the examined object or required axis of view. Contrary to appearances, the required mounting of the camera with its accessories is not a simple operation. It requires many factors to be considered and is often limited by the amount of available space. Avicon is the only Polish distributor of Swivellink components. Their great variety and configurability allows for efficient system integration with other base elements.

The history of Swivellink with mounting brackets began after an interesting situation with the project to place a safety button on industrial machines in its own factory. Such a button is used to stop the machine in an emergency in a dangerous situation. Pausing a device also stops other related processes. Accidentally pressing the button or breaking the connecting wire would result in unnecessary and costly production downtime. In order to avoid this situation, Swivellink has designed an ergonomic and safe way to mount the safety buttons. This method quickly turned out to be a bull’s eye and the company decided to focus its development in this direction. Work on new mounting options was started, and over time they started designing components for automation. Today, they offer complete conveyors, modular covers, robot bases, and security verification devices.

The Swivellink offer provided by Avicon includes a number of elements that enable the mounting of vision components. They include various types of bases, joints, connectors, mounting plates and sets. The above-mentioned elements can be combined with each other and the desired mounting bracket can be obtained. Each Swivellink product is manufactured from anodized 6061 aluminum with laser marking. The bases feature a ball joint on one side and a screw holes in pattern of placement that fits most common aluminum profiles with T-slots on the other side. The ball joint has a through hole that can be used to route electric or pneumatic cables. Thanks to this, the cables are protected in some way and do not interfere with the use of the system. A reduced-sized base from the XS series is also available. It is recommended to be combined with elements that are small and the basic bases are too large for them. Examples of bases in the Swivellink offer include the classic AFSB-1 and AFSB-1-15 bases.

Base-AFSB-1-Swivellink
Base AFSB-1 Swivellink

Rectangular plates can be attached directly to the bases. All tiles have a vertical or horizontal groove cutout with a rounded end. Depending on the model, they are characterized by a different overall size and a different size and arrangement of mounting holes, which can be selected depending on the requirements.

AFSB-655-HPD2-75 mounting plate, Swivellink

The joints are the next element of the mounting bracket system. They have a double socket for mounting the ball on a base, a connector or for mounting a sensor. Thanks to its special design, the joint allows a wide range of movements, which allows the system to be set in the required position. It is also possible to route cables inside the joint. Joints are also available, which have the ability to form two branches from a single base. Moreover, they have a full 180 ° range of motion. An example of such a joint is the AFSB-290 model shown in photo 6. The offer also includes small size joints dedicated to the XS series.

AFSB-2 joint, Swivellink

The last but not least element included in the mounting brackets are connectors. Combined with articulated joints, they increase the working range and provide greater flexibility. Classic connectors/links of various lengths are available, e.g. model AFSB-3-4, where the last digit in the name indicates the length of the connector. In this case, it will be 4 inches. The Swivellink offer also includes special two-branch couplings dedicated to the “Tee” line joints and connectors with reduced dimensions for the XS series.

AFSB-3-4 link

The Swivellink offer also includes proposals for ready-made sets of mounting brackets. Therefore, each assembly element can be selected individually, according to specific needs, or use ready-made packages. Small kits are available, for example AFSB-1000-SBKIT-12, which includes a standard base, a joint and two sensor support brackets. For more demanding systems, you can also find more advanced sets, such as the AFSB-1104, which is shown in photo 10. It consists of 3 bases (bases), 4 standard joints, one joint and one connector from the “tee” series, two 4-inch fittings and two clamps.

AFSB-1104 mounting set

Swivellink offers a wide range of mounting options for a variety of vision components – cameras or illuminators. Individual elements can be combined with each other in order to obtain a specific configuration or choose a ready set from among the proposed sets. In addition to typical mounting brackets, there are also handles for monitors, control buttons, robot arms or other parts of the production line.