Guided cylinders

Guided cylinders

Festo guided cylinders – drives with guide rod and linear slides – are pneumatic drives and are among the "workhorses" of industrial automation. They are in widespread use in applications involving lifting, pressing, pulling, separating, and much more. Both types of guided cylinders combine the advantages of linear motion with those of guidance, and are characterized by particularly high stability.

You can find additional products in our category: Pneumatic cylinders

In the area of guided cylinders, we offer you two product categories: Sliding drives (linear slides) and drives with guide rod (double piston, guide, compact or mini guided cylinders). Sliding drives are characterized by high precision and repetition accuracy. Actuators with guide rods are attached to the yoke plate, which is thus secured against rotation and is consequently particularly sturdy and resilient.

Linear slide (mini slide)

Festo sliding drives are pneumatic linear slides with a particularly compact design. We offer linear slides in a large range of sizes with multiple mounting options and many damping choices to ensure optimum cycle times with minimum vibration transmission to the machine. Sliding drives achieve a repetition accuracy of 0.01 mm.

Linear slide

Drives with guide rod

Festo guided cylinders with guide rod are particularly robust, resilient, compact and precise. They are offered in many sizes and variants – the selection ranges from classic guided cylinders to special models, for example for food, heat-resistant, cleanroom or ATEX applications. Drives with guide rod can hold almost any tooling, deliver stroke lengths up to 400 mm, and can apply great forces where required.

Actuators with guide rods

Areas of application for guided cylinders

Guided cylinders with guide rod have only one piston in many applications, but series with double piston are also available. Piston integrity is ensured by the two guide rods, which are attached by the piston to the yoke plate, which holds a tool. The yoke plate prevents the piston from rotating when transverse loads are applied. This ensures first-class operational stability.

For guided cylinders with guide rod, there are widespread applications involving lifting, pressing, pulling, pushing, clamping, stopping, holding, cutting, separating, and much more.

Linear slides normally consist of one or two piston rods and a guide rail. These are guided in the slide housing via recirculating ball bearing elements or cage guides. As a result, they provide extremely accurate movement with high repetition accuracy even when subjected to transverse loads and a torque. Linear slides always perform linear movements in horizontal or vertical attachment.

Linear slides are therefore perfect for tasks where high precision and repetition accuracy are required. They make excellent tools attached to a gantry, such as on a 2D linear gantry with X and Z-axis. Also, they can be combined in pick & place or piggyback configurations, often without adapters.