Industrial Automation and Motion Control Blog | The Knotts Company

The current 80/20 Aluminum extrusion catalog is over 2" thick! There is an enormous amount of information packed in over 1200 pages. Finding what you need doesn't have to be a challenge. We are going to step through some tips and tricks on how to navigate the 80/20 Catalog.

Catalog 18 is broken down into five major sections, plus the glossary and index. 

1. Application and Company Overview
2. Fractional Extrusion
3. Metric Extrusion
4. HT Series Extrusion
5. Quick Frame Extrusion

Sub-categories within each section contain everything from hardware to cut charges for that specific series.

Now lets review three common questions.

How can I determine the extrusions reaction to loading?

80/20 provides basic beam deflection calculation formulas for the determining the basic deflection of the extrusion under various loads. The three formulas allow you to calculate a point load centered on the extrusion, evenly distributed load, and a cantilever load. 80/20 provides the Moment of Inertia for each extrusion profile. To help simplify the calculations, they have provided software that does all the math work for you. The 80/20 Tech Toolkit can be downloaded here.

How do I know if the hardware is compatible with the t-slotted profile I'm using?

Not all of the t-slotted profiles are the same. There are fractional and metric profiles and within each family, the outside dimensions vary.  Certain fasteners and accessories are designed to work with specific extrusion dimensions and t-slots. 

To determine compatibility, you will need to know the slot opening and profile series. This will establish the compatibility code, which is listed for every part.

Is this part 10 series compatible?

The size of the 10 series t-slot limits the size of the hardware choices. A 5/16-18 screw will not fit. 80/20 has added a small red symbol to help eliminate potential confusion while selecting parts and hardware for the 10 series extrusions.  In the hardware and parts sub-sections of the fractional selection you will see a red t-slot icon. The icon tells you that the specific part is compatible with 10 series extrusion.  

Feel free to send us an email if you have any other questions in regards to the 80/20 catalog. Our 80/20 team can be contacted at 8020@knottsco.com.