Spiral Conveyor

Conovey offers a real quality choice when you are considering your next spiral conveyor purchase.

+250

Spirals Built

+25

Years Building Spirals

+100

Unique Design Improvements

Spiral Conveyor Selection

Select from one of our spiral conveyor categories below to learn more
POSITIVE-DRIVE-SQUARE-scaled

Positive Drive

Ultra-smooth chain motion and guaranteed low tension operation
OUTRUNNER-SQUARE-scaled

OutRunner

Proven external drive based operation eliminates need for cage
spiral conveyor design

Slip Drive

Conventional slip drive technology is older but well established

CONOVEY Spiral Conveyors

CONOVEY has a long history of building high quality spiral cooling conveyors, and spiral freezing systems. CONOVEY excels as a manufacturer of spiral freezers, providing innovative freezing solutions for the food processing industry.

Spiral  conveying systems can be used effectively to elevate, lowerate, accumulate, proof, heat/hold, cool and freeze a near endless variety of food and CPG products.  The single most important advantage of spiral conveyor is its unique ability to provide hundreds or thousands of linear feet of conveying surface in a compact footprint.  CONOVEY offers three different spiral conveyor technologies, each with its own advantages. 

 

CONOVEY Positive Drive Spirals

We recommend our Positive Drive Spirals for both new systems and when upgrading your older Conventional Slip Drive Spiral systems.

Positive Drive Spirals are an the preferred alternative to Lotension Slip drive systems. Positive Drive chain features a stainless-steel grid belt with driving tabs on the inside edge. The tabs engage and are driven by UHMW vertical ribs on the spiral center drum. PosiDrive Spiral™ is recommended particularly for applications where product movement is a problem, or where oils or other product characteristics cause operational issues with Lotension drive systems. 

Self-Synchronizing Drive
The Positive Drive system acts like a timing gear via positive engagement between the extended tabs on inside chain edge and extended UHMW drive bars on on the cage perimeter.
Precise Product Orientation
The Positive Drive System enables the spiral conveyor chain to run super smooth with no pulse or stutter, thereby allowing products to remain firmly in rows during travel through the spiral.
Reduced Belt Tension
Overall system tension is about 50% lower than conventional slip spiral systems due to the unique ability of the Positive Drive System to evenly distribute all loads evenly throughout the entire belt path.
Easily Retrofittable
The conversion process from conventional slip drive to the Positive Drive System is easily done by our trained and skilled technicians and the payback easily justifies the cost of the retrofit. Plus, we fully guarantee the work.
Simple to Operate
Up spirals only require a single cage motor and VFD, eliminating all of the complex and un-reliable technology required to operated conventional slip drives.
Great for Oily Products
Oily products run especially well on Positive Drive Systems due to the positive engagement between chain tab and drive bars. On the other hand, oily products can cause significant operational problems with conventional slip drive systems because the oily residues can cause unpredictable frictional forces between the belt edge and cage, resulting in protentional belt flips and catastrophic failures.
Can Handle Heavy Loads
The Positive Drive system can run much heavier loads than conventional slip systems, providing higher operational reliability and permitting more throughput in a smaller footprint.
Reliable and Durable
The Positive Drive System operate with very little maintenance requirements and are designed to run for many years without any significant changes in reliability.
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OutRunner Spiral Conveyors

CONOVEY manufactures these innovative OutRunner Spiral Conveyors under the Span Tech brand of quality conveyor systems.

The OutRunner Spiral Elevator conveyor is driven by a single gearmotor, but each 360-degree revolution is individually driven via vertical line shaft with sprockets at each tier driving the external edge of the chain. Rather than trying to drive all of the chain from one end, the spiral conveyor design allows each tier to share the load, offering many advantages including great flexibility in loads, speeds and incline angles.

No Central Drive Cage
Due to the externally driven drive mechanism, the internal central cage has been eliminated permitting a simpler design/build and cleaner overall system.
Positively Driven
The positive engagement between sprockets and external belt edges ensures even and reduced tension throughout the entire spiral.
No Belt Flips
The reduced system tension eliminates the protentional for damaging and costly belt flips.
Standard Componentry
The OutRunner Spiral shares many components with our standard line of Span Tech conveyors resulting in the need to carry additional spare parts and making it much easier to troubleshoot and repair.
High Speed
The external drive system permits speeds up to 400 feet per minute.
Fully Reversible
OutRunner spirals are designed to run in both directions making them highly suitable for accumulating applications.
Low Power Requirements
OutRunner spirals are designed to run on very low power. A recently built large tandem dual spiral system operates on a single 2HP drive motor.
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Conventional Slip Drive Spirals

CONOVEY will build traditional slip drive spirals upon request. There is still a large market for these conventional spiral systems.

The main drive component of a slip drive spiral conveyor is the cage and it provides the main source of drive for the conveyor belt. The belt edge is held in tight contact with the cage so that the friction that is created by the wraps of the belt around the cage is sufficient to drive the belt through the system. An auxiliary drive is required to providing just enough pull force to keep the belt in tight contact with the drum and help set belt speed.

Established Technology
The slip drive technology has been around since the 1960's and has therefore established itself in thousands of food production plants worldwide.
Large System Capable
Slip drive systems can be built with over 30 tiers and belt widths to 60" making them highly suitable for large production operations.
Large Variety of Spiral Belting
Due to the long history of slip drive technology, there are many belt suppliers and even more belt options available to tailor to very specific production requirements.
Simple Technology
The technology behind slip drive systems is well established and quite simple lending itself well to facilities that do not have highly technical maintenance and production staff.
Cost Effective
Slip drive belting tends to be less costly than other technologies an the belts typically make up the largest cost portion of a spiral.
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