100+ Years experience design & manufacturing of Flexible Drive
Match the core, casing and end connections to an existing machine, a new product or an unusual routing requirement.
Explore inner cores, protective outer casings and end fittings for complete assemblies, repairs and replacements.
A flexible drive shaft carries rotary power between components while following a curved or offset route. It can help where alignment is difficult, space is restricted or the driven equipment needs to move.
The correct shaft depends on its torque, speed, rotation direction, length, bends, environment and end connections.
Flexible Shafts have no need for the tight tolerances that solid shafts require.
Limitless possibilities in positioning motor and driven components.
Flexible Shafts are 85%-95% efficient. Gears, U-Joints Belts and Pulleys give much lower performance due to greater frictional losses.
Flexible couplings allow only 5 degrees of offset and U-Joints 30 degrees, but with a 40-50% decline in efficiency. Flexible Shafts permit a full 180 degree off-set while maintaining their high efficiency.
Flexible Shafts have a 3 to 1 weight advantage over other design solutions while transmitting greater power loads.
Flexible Shafts install in minutes without special tools or skills. Solid Shafts, Gears, Pulleys, and Universal Joints require precise alignment and skilled mechanics for their installations.
Bearings and housings for Solid Shafts and Gears require precise machining operations. Flexible Shafts eliminate the need for such demanding tolerances and their excessive costs.
Need no special installation tools.
Agriculture
Flexible drives for shearing, clipping, seed spreading and agricultural machinery.
Construction
Drive shafts for concrete vibration, pumping and other demanding site equipment.
Food
Automotive
Industrial Cleaning
Flexible drive shafts carry rotary power around bends, offsets and obstacles. These are the questions engineers ask us most often about how they work, what we make and how to order.
Yes. Photographs, measurements, drawings, identification marks or an existing sample can help the team assess a replacement.
In Sheffield. Flexible Drive & Tool designs and manufactures flexible drive shafts, components and remote valve operating systems at its Sheffield site, as a division of Fairport Construction Equipment Ltd.
Flexible shafts are 85 to 95 per cent efficient. Gears, universal joints, belts and pulleys lose more power through friction.
A flexible shaft can turn through a full 180 degrees and still run efficiently. Flexible couplings allow about 5 degrees of offset, and universal joints about 30 degrees with a 40 to 50 per cent drop in efficiency.
Construction equipment, pumps, agricultural tools, industrial cleaning, food processing, automotive controls, marine applications and remote valve operation.
Yes. We make replacement flexible shafts, inner cores, outer casings and end fittings for existing equipment and machinery.
Yes. We manufacture flexible drive solutions for customers in the UK and in international markets.
