The 5 characteristics a sliding gate motor must have

As the title of this article says, we explore the five most important features when choosing a sliding gate motor.

Motor power alone means nothing. 

When we read the power characteristics of a motor for a sliding gate, we can be confused by the values we read in the technical specifications, thinking that the power of the motor somehow equates to its quality. In reality this is not the case, motors in the 500 kg residential category all have more or less the same power, the difference being in the way they use it. Our SUPER SPEEDY motor has such a fine tuning of the power that we are able to adjust its sensitivity to obstacles extremely precisely.

Motor with self-learning control unit, what does that mean?

It means that the control unit performs a series of manoeuvres to understand the fully open and fully closed positions. But how does it detect them? Almost all motors on the market detect it with a current peak. To put it in a banal way, they make the gate slam first on the mechanical stop on closing and then on the one on opening, they see that the current rises, because the motor is straining, and they realise that they have reached the end of their travel. Our SUPER SPEEDY acts differently, thanks to the HYBRID technology composed of reed switches and encoders, it does not need to "slam" but we can stop it exactly where we want. The only manoeuvre it will make is the initial manoeuvre from new to see how long the stroke is and adjust the decelerations and spaces accordingly.

Residential intensive use engine. 

This is one of those definitions that really leads one astray. Actually, the type of use of a gate motor would be regulated, but everyone does as they please. They put intensive use there to give importance, but then also the wording residential to avoid future problems. The important thing is to know that for a motor to work on a block of flats with a very high number of users, it must have particular and very precise structural characteristics. Therefore it would be much better, as we do at ugateshop, to indicate the maximum number of users that can use that particular motor. In this way we will be sure to always choose the most appropriate engine.

 What does pinion type Z14 - Z16 - Z20 mean?

The pinion of a sliding motor is that external gear that transmits motion to the gate through its 'coupling' with the rack. All sliding gate motors use a pinion that can be installed on the racks form M4. All pinions and racks use the same module, so they can be interchangeable even between different brands. The Z-characteristic of the pinion indicates the number of teeth, in general a pinion with more teeth will be faster than one with less, although to make a correct comparison one must also consider the speed of rotation of the pinion. We use a Z14 with the Z14, but having an electronic speed control with a very precise control we increase or decrease the speed of rotation of the pinion.

Mechanical spring or inductive limit switch with magnets.

There is no doubt about this. The magnetic limit switch has many advantages, first and foremost the fact that there is practically no mechanical wear. Also the accuracy of the reading even in cold or icy conditions. Not to be too 'naughty', it must also be said that the spring-loaded limit switch is a traditional technology that is still widely used. The SUPER SPEEDY motor uses inductive technology + the encoder, so we wanted to further improve this type of system and make it particularly reliable.