Bellows Couplings for Printing Applications
Ruland bellows couplings are made of two lightweight anodized aluminum hubs joined by a flexible stainless steel bellows creating a low inertia, zero-backlash coupling. The thin walls of the bellows allow the coupling to flex under misalignment while remaining rigid under torsional loads. Engineers designing large format printing systems often prefer to use bellows couplings because they are lightweight, accommodate all forms of misalignment, and have the greatest size-for-size torque and torsional stiffness of any Ruland flexible coupling. Their high torsional stiffness and balanced design is critical in large format printers to prevent banding.
Ruland manufactures bellows couplings with balanced design for reduced vibration at speeds up to 10,000 RPM. They are available in clamp and set screw hubs with or without keyways in bore sizes ranging from 1/8” to 1” and 3mm to 25mm. Ruland bellows couplings are manufactured in our Marlborough, MA factory under strict controls using proprietary processes.