Bearing technology for fully automatic pizza oven from BistroBox

What was needed: Toothed belt axis, energy chain, gears, clevis joints, liners, ball bearings and circlips

Requirements: Maintenance-free bearing technology that works for a long time in the self-service area. Temperature tolerance between 3 and 300°C. Suitable for the food sector.

Industry: Vending machinery

Success for the customer: Travelling at 66mm per revolution, the toothed belt axis drylin ZLW-1040 is quiet and durable. As the toothed belt axis and the other bearing technology installed, such as slewing ring bearings, spherical bearings or ball bearings, operate completely maintenance-free without the need for external lubrication, they are perfect for vending machinery. This also makes them hygienic and suitable for applications in the food sector.

The BistroBox from the Austrian company of the same name is a self-service pizzeria with the first pizza oven of its kind countrywide: The pizza is ready to eat in just 90 seconds at the touch of a button. This is made possible by combining different production steps – from picking up the chilled pizza to delivering the finished baked product to the customer – in just one appliance.

This chain of sophisticated production steps in just one machine also required a well thought-out, broad selection of bearing technology, as there is no shortage of movement in the vending machine. Each process step requires a combination of different movements, whether swivelling, turning, lifting, lowering or pulling out.

This is also evident when looking at the process stations: Once the customer has selected and paid for the desired pizza at the terminal, a platform – comparable to a pizza pusher – moves within the vending machine to its cooling station. The pizzas, which are chilled at 5°C and quality-checked, are already waiting there, complete with packaging. The platform extends, picks up the pizza, retracts, swivels back and moves to the next station on a different level, where the packaging is removed from the pizza. The platform then swivels to the pizza oven where the product is baked at 300°C. Finally, the pizza is transported to the delivery compartment, where the customer can receive the ordered food.

When selecting the bearing technology, it was important to ensure that the completely self-sufficient self-service systems function absolutely maintenance-free and trouble-free and have a long service life. The bearing technology also had to function without any problems at a specified temperature range of 5 to 300°C. As the vending machine delivers pizza, the high hygiene standards in food technology must also be met.

Jürgen Traxler, Technical CEO at BistroBox, and his team set out to find the maintenance-free bearing technology that would allow the pizza to be hygienically transported through the entire process.

The toothed belt axis ZLW-1040 (Picture 1) forms the centrepiece of the logistics system. The axis with a toothed belt tension of 150N and a feed speed of 66mm/rev ensures that the baking process runs smoothly and quickly. The completely maintenance-free system guides the platform with the pizza vertically to the height of the cooling station, then to the oven and finally to the level of the output tray. It works completely lubrication-free and is therefore perfect for applications in close proximity to food. The drylin linear technology is also suitable for the wide temperature range of the application, which includes a pizza oven and a cooling station.

An energy chain of the E16 series was used at the head end of the vertically installed toothed belt axis (Picture 2). It guides the moving cable safely along the ceiling so that the toothed belt axis and the platform with the pizza can pivot in towards the cooling station, the oven and the output tray.

Once the pizza has been positioned in front of a station, the platform with the pizza extends and passes it into the station. Here, 3D-printed gears in special dimensions are used, which are made from the wear-resistant material i3, as well as several gear racks.

Before the cooled pizza reaches the oven, it must be freed from its packaging. To do this, it is rotated several times on the platform on its own axis in an intermediate station. Rotation is made possible by the PRT-02-20-AL slewing ring bearing (Picture 4).

Finally, at the pizza oven, the oven door mechanism is supported by a igubal clevis joint type GERMF-04 (Picture 5).

In addition to these products, other of our products such as tribotape liners A160 to reduce resistance at friction points (Picture 6) or xiros ball bearings (Picture 7) and igubal circlips are also used at several points.