Vertical conveyor- also commonly referred to as freight lifts and material lifts - are conveyor systems used to raise or lower materials to different levels of a facility during the handling process.
Examples of these conveyors applied in the industrial assembly process include transporting materials to different floors. While similar in look to freight elevators, vertical conveyors are not equipped to transport people, only materials.
Vertical lift conveyors contain two adjacent, parallel conveyors for simultaneous upward movement of adjacent surfaces of the parallel conveyors.
One of the conveyors normally has spaced apart flites for transporting bulk food items. The dual conveyors rotate in opposite directions, but are operated from one gear box to insure equal belt speed. One of the conveyors is pivotally hinged to the other conveyor for swinging the pivotally attached conveyor away from the remaining conveyor for access to the facing surfaces of the parallel conveyors.
Vertical lift conveyors can be manually or automatically loaded and controlled. Almost all vertical conveyors can be systematically integrated with horizontal conveyors, since both of these conveyor systems work in tandem to create a cohesive material handling assembly line.In similarity to vertical conveyors, spiral conveyors raise and lower materials to different levels of a facility. In contrast, spiral conveyors are able to transport material loads in a continuous flow. Industries that require a higher output of materials - food and beverage, retail case packaging, pharmaceuticals - typically incorporate these conveyors into their systems over standard vertical conveyors due to their ability to facilitate high throughput. Most spiral conveyors also have a lower angle of incline or decline (11 degrees or less) to prevent sliding and tumbling during operation.
Vertical conveyor with forksJust like spiral conveyors also avertical conveyorthat use forks are able to transport material loads in a continuous flow. With these forks the load can be taken from one horizontal conveyor and put down on another horizontal conveyor on a different level. By adding more forks more products can be lifted at the same time. Conventional vertical conveyors have the restriction that the input and output of material loads must have the same direction. By using forks many combinations of different input- and outputlevels in different directions are possible. A vertical conveyor with forks can even be used as a vertical sorter. Compared to a spiral conveyor a vertical conveyor - with or without forks - takes up less space.