Engineers face mounting pressure to decrease size, component count, assembly time, and costs. There are also strong motivations to eliminate maintenance in industrial products. These factors are driving many engineers to consider hollow shaft gearmotor solutions in a wide variety of applications, from conveyors to printing and packaging machinery as well as medical equipment.

A gearmotor with a hollow output shaft (also termed a hollow bore) can be connected directly to the driven load. This female/male interface eliminates expensive shaft couplings as well as mounting hardware and chains or sprockets, as well as cumbersome and costly chain guards, which otherwise might be used to connect the gearmotor to the load. A direct connection that eliminates unnecessary parts that are potentially unsafe, are bulky, and present alignment issues is welcomed. Eliminating maintenance inherent with chains and sprockets is an added bonus.

A hollow shaft mounting not only saves space on conveyors but a hollow shaft flange mount can eliminate the need for a support bearing on one side of a conveyor roller. Aesthetics are improved with a hollow shaft mounting arrangement.

Responding to this trend, Bodine Electric Company now enables customers to specify a hollow output shaft as an option on several types of standard right angle gearmotors. With continuous output torques from 5.2 to 575 lb-in. and gear ratios from 5:1 to 3600:1, Bodine hollow shaft right angle gearmotors offer output speeds from less than 1 rpm to over 500 rpm. The standard hollow bore size depends on the gearmotor used, but is typically from ½" to 1". Mechanical details of the hollow bore can vary from keyways to internal hexes or splines. The hollow shaft option can be specified when ordering five or more units of select stock Bodine Electric right angle gearmotors.

Other hollow shaft gearmotor solutions include left- or right-hand face or flange mounts to individual customer requirements. Bodine Electric offers special-order hollow shaft options with its inverter duty AC, permanent magnet DC, and brushless DC motors. Bodine Electric Company's patented e-TORQ™ direct-drive, zero-cogging servomotors are also available in built-to-order custom designed hollow shaft configurations for OEM customers.

To learn more about custom designed hollow shaft gearmotors, you can contact us, your authorized Bodine distributor, or your area Bodine MotionPRO.