01The roller bed and its loads
Rollers suit loads that present a flat, firm bottom: cartons, totes, trays and crated goods. The load bridges several rollers at once, rolling resistance is low, and sections can be arranged for powered transport, zero-pressure accumulation, or simple gravity flow from a higher to a lower point. The Goodscan roller range covers powered roller lines, unpowered (gravity) roller sections and dynamic roller arrangements, specified as complete line sections for a site.
The same flat-bottom requirement is the honest limit. Soft polybags sag between rollers, small items can stall across the pitch, and irregular shapes track poorly — those streams belong on a belt. Roller and belt are complements in one line, not rivals, and Goodscan lines routinely run roller beds at workstations and accumulation zones with belt sections for transport and metering.
02Powered, gravity and accumulation
Three duties cover most roller applications:
- Powered roller transport — driven sections that move cartons and totes horizontally at line speed, feeding machines and workstations in sequence.
- Gravity (unpowered) roller — sloped sections where loads descend under control: discharge spurs, order-picking feeds, and short transfers where a drive is unnecessary cost.
- Accumulation — powered sections arranged so parcels can queue without line pressure crushing the lead carton, buffering machines that run at different rhythms.
03Specifying roller sections
Roller specification follows the load: roller pitch from the smallest load's footprint (the load should always rest on at least three rollers), width from the largest load, drive and speed from the duty, and frame duty from the heaviest point load — a stack of totes at an accumulation stop. Send the load range and the route; the sections come back as an engineered layout, per the whole-line supply model described on the conveyor systems page.
Noise and cleanliness play a part in section choice more often than catalogues admit: roller beds run louder than belts at speed, and belts shed less debris around food-adjacent or clean goods. Where the line runs beside packing staff all shift, those qualities are working conditions, not details — raise them in the inquiry and they will be reflected in the section design.