Hydraulic Lift Table Conveyor Surfaces vs Ball Transfer Surfaces: Which Top to Order

Which top goes on the order, the roller conveyor surface or the pneumatic ball transfer surface? The load path settles most of it: if loads only travel one straight line on and off the platform, order rollers, and if somebody has to spin or reposition the load to reach all four sides, order the ball transfers. Everything below applies to the Southworth LS-Series hydraulic lift tables as configured in that manufacturer's own option list, not to lift tables in general. The assumption worth killing early is that ball transfers are the more versatile upgrade. The two tops are described against two different motions, so counting how many directions a surface can move a pallet is the wrong way to rank them.

The Variable That Decides Roller Versus Ball Transfer

The variable that settles this is not the surface, it is the load's path at the station. The published option list writes one top around conveyor integration and moving items on and off the lift, and the other around repositioning items so every side can be reached. Neither description claims to cover the other's job.

So ask what happens while the load sits on the platform. Either it keeps moving in a line, or a person has to turn it in place. Those jobs do not overlap, and most stations do one of them rather than both.

If the load never needs turning at your station, go with rollers. The trade-off is real and belongs in the justification you send to whoever signs the purchase order: a load that has to be spun so an operator can reach the fourth side has no way to be spun on a gravity roller top, and no amount of layout tuning fixes that.

That holds for the LS-Series as configured in its option list. Other lift table lines, other manufacturers and other platform options sit outside this comparison, and the same question asked about a different machine deserves its own answer.

What the LS-Series Option List Actually States

The published option text is short enough to read at the level of individual words rather than as a feature catalog. Gravity conveyor tops are listed for integration with conveyor systems, with roller conveyor tops mounted to the platform to transfer items on or off lifts. Ball transfer tops are described as platforms that can be supplied with pneumatic ball transfers, so items can be repositioned for access to all sides or loads transferred on to or off of the lift. A third platform entry, the turntable, shows up in the same customization list and answers a similar question a different way.

What is missing matters just as much. The wording describes configurations, not performance. There is no statement about how fast a load crosses a roller deck, how much force it takes to rotate a pallet on balls, or which loads suit which surface. The public page for the line also carries maximum-height summaries that do not agree with one another, which is why nothing here quotes a height, a capacity or a load figure. That omission is deliberate. A number pulled from a summary that contradicts itself is worse than no number at all, because it will get copied into a capital request and outlive everyone's memory of where it came from.

The practical read is to treat the option text as a description of motion and get the figures from the model-specific specification sheet your supplier sends with the quote. Two documents, two jobs, and neither one substitutes for the other.

Load Path from a Straight Line to Any Direction

Direction of travel is the dimension the option wording draws, so settle it before anything else. A load that only ever crosses the platform along one line asks the surface for one thing. A load that has to be turned so a different face reaches the operator asks for another, and a deck built to roll along a single axis does not answer it.

On rollers, a pallet that arrives square to the deck and leaves square to the deck never asks the surface for anything else. On ball transfers the load can be pushed in any direction, which is the property that matters when somebody has to bring the back face of a crate around without lifting it. If a pallet enters and exits on one line, rollers match the fixture exactly and the lift behaves like a powered section of conveyor. If it has to be rotated, the trade-off is that you give up the clean conveyor line and take the ball transfers, along with whatever their pneumatic side demands at the station.

Keep the strength of that conclusion in proportion. It is an inference from how the two options are described, not a measured comparison of transfer speed or effort. Nothing in the material behind this article reports a side-by-side test of the two surfaces, so treat the difference as a difference in intended motion and settle the rest against the model sheet.

Where the Operator Stands Changes the Answer

Station layout moves this decision more than surface specification does. Consider an assembly or work-positioning station where the operator has to address more than one face of the load. There, the repositioning capability described for pneumatic ball transfers is the property doing work every cycle, and the person at the station feels the difference by the end of the first shift.

Now the other layout: a pick station with the operator planted on one side, loads arriving from one conveyor and leaving on the same line. At that station, skip the pneumatic ball transfers and go with the roller top. The extra motion has no user. Nobody walks around the platform, nobody spins the pallet, and the pneumatic side of the option becomes something to install, supply and keep working for a capability the station never exercises. That judgment holds while both conditions are true, one fixed operator side and one load path, and it stops holding the day the process changes and someone needs the back of the load.

The published application list for the line, machine feeding, work positioning, assembly, order picking and pallet loading, is useful mainly as a way to sort stations into those two shapes. Order picking usually lands on the single-sided side of the line. Assembly and work positioning more often land on the multi-side, and a pallet loading bay can go either way depending on how the pallet is built.

Loads That Do Not Roll Well on Rollers

A gravity roller top moves a load by letting it roll. That mechanism sets the requirement: the load has to present a flat, consistent rolling face and enough rigidity to cross the rollers without sagging between them. The option text does not list which loads suit the surface, so what follows is reasoning from the mechanism rather than a published limit.

Suppose the station handles something that will not do that. A load on a soft or irregular base, a container whose bottom is not a single plane, a tote that would need a pallet under it before it could travel at all. On rollers that becomes a manual drag with the rollers working against the person pushing. On ball transfers the contact is different, the load rides on small points instead of lines, and it can be pushed in whatever direction the operator chooses.

If the load cannot present a steady rolling face, skip the roller top. What you take on instead is the pneumatic supply question that comes with ball transfers, and a surface with considerably more small moving parts in it than a roller deck has.

The right move at that point is a question to the supplier, not a guess. Send the actual load description, base type, how it is palletized, how it arrives at the station, and ask which of the two tops the application team would put on the quote. A one-line answer from them is worth more than a week of internal debate.

Maintenance Questions the Quote Will Not Answer

The quote will not tell you what upkeep each surface implies, and that is the part maintenance readers care about most. Ask what a damaged roller does to continued use of the top, and ask the same about a damaged ball. A roller deck with one bad roller and a ball deck with one bad ball are different problems with different answers, and you want to know which one your spares budget is signing up for before the platform lands on the floor.

Ask, too, who owns the air side of the ball transfer option if you order it, and what route it takes to the platform. An option that needs a utility run at the station is a different purchase from one that bolts on and rolls, and the answer usually settles the order on its own. If your building has no practical way to support that side and nobody who would own it, go with the roller top.

Debris deserves its own question per surface. A roller deck and a ball deck do not collect the same things in the same places, and a building that generates cardboard dust, stretch-wrap tails or grit off a dock will want to know how each top behaves there before committing. The finish list belongs in that conversation too: two-part epoxy, corrosion-resistant coatings and stainless steel are all published as custom finishes for the line, and whether they matter depends on whether the station is wash-down, damp or merely dusty.

A Pallet Loading Bay Walk-Through

Take a hypothetical pallet loading bay where loads arrive on an existing conveyor line that runs up to the lift. First branch: because the load comes in and goes out on that line, the roller conveyor top handles the on and off transfer, and the lift becomes an extension of the conveyor rather than a separate piece of equipment the crew has to work around. Pallet loading is one of the applications the line is published for, so this is the shape the roller option was written against.

Second branch, same bay: the operator has to reach the far side of the pallet to wrap it, label it or stack against the back face. The choice flips on that requirement. The conveyor line is no longer the only motion in the station, the load has to come around to face the person working on it, and the ball transfer top is the right order. Accept that the load no longer travels a fixed path.

Third branch: the pallet is staged at the bay and only loaded from one face, with the lift doing height adjustment rather than transport. The walk-through ends where it started, on rollers, and no figure was needed to get there.

What to Confirm with Southworth Before Ordering

Confirm that the top is written on the quote as the intended option from the customization list. Conveyor tops, ball transfers and turntables are separate entries, and a line that reads platform, special tells you nothing about which surface you are buying or what it will do at the station.

Confirm what the pneumatic ball transfer top requires at the station, since the option text names that side and goes no further. Confirm the model's own specification sheet for height and every other figure, because the public page's maximum-height summaries conflict with each other and none is quoted here for that reason. The quoted platform should also match the load interface the roller top wording describes, items transferring on and off the lift along a conveyor line, rather than a load your crew intends to slide across by hand.

This is not the option for a station where loads come in and go out on one conveyor line and the operator works from one fixed side. Pneumatic ball transfers will cost you supply, parts and upkeep for a motion nobody at that station uses, and the roller conveyor top is the order. Buy the ball transfers when a person has to rotate or reposition the load to reach every side. That is the station the option was designed around, and at that station the rollers are the compromise.