Roller Conveyors have a wide range of applications in industries such as warehousing, assembly lines and ‘pick and pack’ applications. The Unpowered conveyor is the Gravity Roller conveyor while the Power conveyor is called as the Powered Roller Conveyor which comes in many designs and categories.

The simplest of all conveyors is the Gravity roller conveyors. It is thought that the roller technique was used in the construction of the Pyramids and Stonehenge, amongst other things. While we still use the techniques used by our forefathers, we have refined the system a lot to suit our modern needs.

Roller conveyors are ideal for transporting dry, solid items with a low centre of gravity (e.g. cannot topple) and a flat base, with no protrusions. Because the rollers are placed with a little gap in between and the movement is controlled by gravity, loads experiences a little vibration as they move along the roller.

Very tiny loads are not suitable for this type of roller conveyors or discrete shape packages can lock the rollers. Also problems occur with items that have a high centre of gravity, or a narrow base, which could topple as they pass from one conveyor roller to the next.

Of course wet, sticky, or semi-solid items such as clay, bread dough, Liquids, powders, aggregates are also unsuitable for roller conveyors. For such kind of conveyors, Line Shaft conveyors are the winner.

A major attraction of roller conveyors in general is the low capital cost, combined with negligible maintenance cost. Short of an all-out attack by a fork-lift truck or similar, there is very little that can go wrong with them. The Roller Conveyor parts are readily available. All the parts such as rollers, beds, sprockets can be cheaply replaced in a short time without hampering the production.

Gravity Roller Conveyors are available at a varied price range depending upon the bed used. Plastic bed rollers are cheaper than the mild steel, galvanized steel or the stainless steel roller beds. The usage depends upon the sort of load and usage you require, and on what environment you wish to operate the machine in.

It is usual for a conveyor to be custom-built for a particular application, and hence can be “pre-set” at any desired height or angle of slope. Height adjustment is also possible as well as minor adjustments to the slope angle can also be made. For more sophisticated use they also come with variable angle legs and even telescopic legs.

When gravity alone is not sufficient to move a load then roller units can be powered, with options of LineShaft-Drive roller conveyors for lightweight (up to 20Kg or so) packages. In addition to the obvious benefits of being powered, these units can also offer accumulation. This means that when a package reaches the end of the conveyor, it will stop, without stopping the rest of the conveyor. Hence packages can gradually “accumulate” at the end of the conveyor, awaiting human intervention or automatic transfer to another conveyor etc.. The drive shaft powers each roller by means of rubberised bands.

Finally, for heavier loads still then chain drive roller conveyors can be used. Chain drive is similar to a Line Drive conveyor but instead of a rubberized belt, Chains are used to provide a more heavy duty drive mechanism.