In Thai beverage and bottled water plants, main conveyor lines are running faster and faster, carrying glass and PET bottles at high speed. When a filler, capper or labeller stops unexpectedly, unreliable backstop devices at the conveyor drive can allow accumulated bottles to roll backward in large numbers. The result is broken bottles, damaged guards and equipment, and long clean-up times. Many factories install simple ratchets or homemade one-way devices, but as they wear, noise increases and engagement becomes slower—often failing to protect the line when it matters most.

For medium power, high-speed beverage conveyors, we recommend using Suma BB series cam clutch bearings on the gearbox output shaft. Typical sizes such as Suma BB40 and BB50 suit 40–50 mm output shaft diameters. The BB outer race can be press-fitted into a standard housing, while the inner race is mounted on the shaft with interference fit or a key connection. Inside, a cam-and-needle design provides relatively high backstop torque within a compact diameter, capable of handling the inertia shock when the line stops. At the same time, the BB series offers high permissible overrunning speed, making it suitable for continuous high-speed operation without becoming a bottleneck like some low-speed ratchet devices.

In real projects, we work with Thai customers to estimate the required backstop torque based on conveyor slope, load and motor power, then select an appropriate Suma BB model with sufficient safety margin. For example, a 0.75–1.5 kW line mainly conveying glass bottles often uses a BB40-size solution; heavier loads or steeper slopes may call for BB50 to gain extra locking capacity. With hardened inner and outer races, suitable lubrication and sealing, BB bearings stand up well to the humid, washdown environments typical of beverage plants.

After introducing Suma BB clutches, several Thai filling plants have observed in stop tests that bottles remain essentially in place, with only slight movement—no longer rolling back in large waves and causing pile-ups or breakage. Operators can focus on process adjustments and quality checks instead of constantly rescuing bottles and cleaning glass. For system integrators, standardizing on a small set of Suma BB40/BB50 cam clutch bearings allows them to unify backstop solutions across different customers and line configurations, simplifying design, purchasing and after-sales support.