Guiding Location

What type of web guide is best for your application?

How to choose?

Unwind Guiding

Either an unwind or a displacement guide are compact, effective options to correct for offset or shifted layers in the input roll.
An unwind guide has the simplest web path, but does require lateral shifting of the unwind rollstand.

A displacement guide placed immediately downstream of the unwind stand adds to the web path complexity, but will guide the web with a smaller actuator without shifting the unwind rollstand.

Reasons NOT to use unwind guides:

1. Rolls are sensitive to lateral shocks (too slippery)
2. Unwind is too large to shift laterally.
3. No space to shift unwind laterally
4. Shifting unwind is difficult to coordinate with roll loading and unloading

Reasons NOT to use displacement guiding:

1. No space for displacement guide.
2. Input errors need to be corrected immediately
3. Web is sensitive to twisting
4. Can’t touch one side of web

Intermediate Guiding

Either displacement or steering-type guides are used for intermediate web-to-process needs. Chase guiding should also be consider – the unconventional approach of moving your process to find the web.
Displacement guiding, with its easy setup and compact design should be the first choice for intermediate guiding.
Steering guides are best used to control the position of a long span.
Chasing guiding is used when the web is more difficult to move than the process.

This is an easy choice:
Reasons to choose steering guiding:

1. Need to control long span
2. Can’t touch one side of web

Reasons to choose displacement guiding:

1. Limited space
2. Web wrinkles easily from misaligned rollers

Reasons to use chase guiding:

1. Web is rigid, constrained, or can’t be guided for some other reason
2. Process is easy to lateral shift to the web position

Rewind Guiding

Both displacement guiding and rewinder are compact, effective options for aligning the web to the core and previously wound layers.
A rewind guide is the simplest option, shifting the stand to ‘catch’ the wandering web. 
Like using a displacement guide at unwinding, a displacement guide immediately upstream of the rewinder adds to the web path complexity, but will guide the web with a smaller actuator without shifting the winding roll.

Reasons NOT to use rewind guides:

1. Rolls are sensitive to lateral shocks (too slippery)
2. Rewind is too large to shift laterally
3. No space to shift rewind laterally.
4. Shifting rewind difficult to coordinate with roll loading and unloading

Reasons NOT to use displacement guiding:

1. No space for displacement guide.
2. Web is sensitive to twisting
3. Can’t touch one side of web

Reasons to use slitting:

1. Need to trim edges anyway, such as to remove ragged or thick edges.
2. Winding inline with slitting.