Castors With Brakes.

What are Castors With Brakes?

Castors with brakes, also known as braked castors, locking castors or lockable castors, are part of Accu’s Castors & Wheels range that lets equipment roll freely when it needs to move and stay put when it doesn’t. At a glance each looks like a standard swivel castor with a foot-operated brake lever added to the fork, sitting just clear of the wheel. One press of the lever holds the equipment in position, so a loaded trolley or workbench stays exactly where it’s left, even when leaned on or worked at.

Castors across much of the braked range carry a European standard listing, whether EN 12530 for institutional settings such as shops, hotels and hospitals, EN 12532 for industrial equipment moved at up to 4 km/h or EN 12533 for industrial equipment moved at 4 km/h to 16 km/h. Locking castors are used wherever mobile equipment also has to stand firm, from workshop trolleys and mobile workbenches to production line carts, material handling equipment and mobile machinery.

How Castors With Brakes Work

A braked castor mounts through a top plate, a single bolt hole or a threaded stem, with the brake lever left accessible for a foot. A wheel brake presses against the tread so the wheel can’t turn but the swivel head stays free, which means the equipment can still pivot slightly around a locked castor. A total lock brake locks the wheel and the swivel head together, removing that movement and holding the castor rigidly in line. Total lock brakes come in leading and trailing versions, with the difference showing in the swivel radius: a leading brake leaves it unchanged, while a trailing brake usually adds to it, taking a 100 mm castor from 90 mm to 123 mm.

In a fabrication shop, a mobile welding table carries a 300 kg steel top and up to 150 kg of fixture and workpiece, running on four 100 mm swivel castors with polyurethane wheels and total lock brakes. Allowing for one castor lifting off an uneven floor, each of the other three carries 150 kg, which matches the 150 kg rating of the 100 mm braked castor with an injection-moulded polyurethane wheel. With wheel brakes alone, the free swivel heads would let the table twist and creep as a fitter leans on it or drags a clamp across it, pulling a tacked assembly out of position. Total lock brakes stop both the wheels and the swivel heads, so the table stays exactly where it was set. Release the levers and the table can roll and steer freely to the next job.

Materials Castors With Brakes Are Made From

Accu’s lockable castor wheels draw on engineering-grade metals for strength and on polymers and elastomers for grip, with each castor pairing chosen to hold firm on the floor it will meet:

• Steel: The housing on most braked castors in the range, pressed in light to extra-heavy-duty grades and finished in blue passivation or zinc plating.
• Stainless Steel: Braked housings for washdown and corrosive areas, where the ALPHA STAINLESS castors score Excellent (5 of 5) for corrosion resistance and work down to -40 °C on polyamide wheels.
• Cast Iron: KAPPA housings fitted with leading total lock brakes, plus cast iron wheel centres, on braked castors rated up to 1440 kg.
• Aluminium: A stiff, lightweight wheel centre that keeps polyurethane and elastic rubber treads true on braked castors rated up to 800 kg.
• Rubber: Solid and elastic treads that grip the floor and hold a braked castor steady, with non-marking versions for finished floors.
• Rubber - TPR: Found on the lighter braked castors up to 100 kg, a thermoplastic rubber tread at 87 Shore A that softens the ride.
• Plastic - PUR: Polyurethane treads, injection moulded or cast at 40 to 42 Shore D, that give a braked castor good grip without sacrificing load capacity or wear life.
• Plastic - Nylon: Polyamide wheels that start rolling easily once the brake is released, plus polyamide centres and the silver grey LEVINA housings.
• Plastic - PP: Polypropylene centres under rubber and polyurethane treads, plus solid polypropylene wheels on the smaller braked castors.
• Plastic - Phenolic: A hard, rigid black wheel used on zinc plated and stainless steel braked castors rated from 100 kg to 150 kg.

Sizes & Types of Castors With Brakes Available

Braked castors are offered in three brake types and a broad range of sizes and fixings, suiting everything from light equipment carts to heavy industrial trolleys:

• Wheel Diameter (D): 50 mm to 200 mm.
• Wheel Width (T): 17 mm to 50 mm.
• Mounting Height (H): 67.5 mm to 250 mm.
• Approximate Load Capacity: 35 kg to 1440 kg.
• Brake Type: Wheel Brake; Total Lock Brake, Leading; Total Lock Brake, Trailing.
• Fixing Type: Bolt Hole Fixing; Square Plate, 60 x 60 mm; Rectangular Plate, EN R42, 105 x 85 mm; Rectangular Plate, EN R43, 137 x 105 mm.
• Plate Fixing Hole Centres (ExG): 33 x 33 mm to 105 x 80 mm.
• Fixing Hole Diameter: 5.5 mm to 11 mm.
• Thread Size: M10 x 25 to M12 x 30.

All of these are swivel castors with brakes, as fixed castors don’t need one and a common layout pairs two of them with two castors from Accu’s Fixed Castors range. Wheel Brake versions come in 50 mm only, while Total Lock Brake versions run from 75 mm to 200 mm. Threaded stem options cover 50 mm to 100 mm wheels and loads up to 120 kg, and stainless steel housings run from 60 mm to 200 mm and up to 500 kg. Every braked castor rated at 300 kg or more fixes through an EN R43 plate with a total lock brake, and the full set of heavy-duty braked castors over 500 kg is also listed under Heavy-Duty Castors.

For equipment that rarely moves and needs to stand level and completely still, why not browse Accu’s range of machine feet, which hold position without relying on a brake at all.

FAQ

Q: Do castor wheels have brakes?

A: Not all of them. Braked castor wheels have a brake built into the castor that’s applied with the foot, while unbraked castors roll and swivel freely. A wheel brake stops the wheel turning and a total lock brake also locks the swivel head so the equipment cannot rotate on the spot. In Accu’s range, every braked castor is a swivel castor, so braked swivel castors are usually fitted alongside fixed castors.

Q: Where can I find heavy-duty castors with brakes?

A: Accu’s range of castors with brakes runs up to 1440 kg per castor, and every braked castor rated at 300 kg or more fixes through an EN R43 plate with a total lock brake. The highest-rated is the 125 mm KAPPA castor at 1440 kg dynamic, while the largest 200 mm braked castors reach 1200 kg. The Heavy-Duty Castors range lists those rated 500 kg and over alongside matching fixed castors.

Q: Can you add a brake to castor wheels?

A: There are no add-on brake kits in Accu’s castor range, so the practical route is to swap each castor for its braked equivalent. Braked versions share the mounting height and fixing of their unbraked twins, to within 0.5 mm on a few of the smaller castors, so the equipment stays level and the existing holes line up. Check the swivel radius before fitting, because a trailing total lock brake can increase it, taking a 100 mm castor from 90 mm to 123 mm.

Bespoke Castors With Brakes Manufacture.

High precision, bespoke manufacture of Castors With Brakes to customer specification. State of the art facilities specialising in both small batch prototyping and large scale manufacture.