The roofing plant says the web is wandering. The rolling mill says they’re chasing gauge and burning up chocks. The cable plant says the take-up is telescoping and they’re scrapping the ends of reels. Three industries, three vocabularies, one root cause: a train of rolls that is no longer level, parallel, and square to the machine centerline.

The reason this problem is so persistent is that it doesn’t announce itself. A roll that is out a few thousandths over its face doesn’t fail. It just quietly pushes the web a little sideways. The next roll pushes it back. Twenty rolls later you have tracking issues, uneven tension, edge wear, and a crew that has learned to “run it a little slow through that section.” That workaround becomes the standard operating procedure, and the lost throughput becomes invisible because nobody ever measured it.

Misalignment compounds. That’s the whole story.

A single roll out of parallel by 0.002″ across a 100″ face is an angle. Angles don’t stay small — they accumulate down the line. Every downstream roll inherits the error, and the web arrives at each one already off. That’s why the symptom almost never appears at the roll that’s causing it. Crews spend a shift adjusting the roll where the wrinkle shows up, when the roll that put it there is forty feet upstream.

You cannot fix that with a straightedge and a tape measure, because the straightedge references the machine — and the machine is what’s wrong.

What misalignment looks like, section by section

We work these lines constantly, so here’s what we actually look for. If you recognize your plant in this list, the problem is geometry.

Accumulators and loopers. Substrate tracking problems entering or leaving the section usually mean pull rolls are scissored or not perpendicular to the machine centerline. If you’re eating sprocket teeth, chain guides, and chains, look at whether the looper frame is level, square, and straight — and whether the sprocket shafts are in level and square with each other. Tracking issues in an accumulator can also mean the upper level simply isn’t parallel to the lower level.

Coaters and saturators. Web tracking issues plus coating inconsistency almost always trace back to one or more rolls inside the coater section. When the material is hot and tacky, geometry errors show up as product defects immediately.

Slate and sand drums. There’s a lot of wrap around these. Uneven embedment of granules and hard tracking problems mean the drums aren’t level and square. Wrap magnifies error — a small angle turns into a large lateral force on the web.

Cooling sections. Chill rolls out of alignment give you tracking issues, uneven cooling, and premature bearing failures. Abrasive carryover accelerates surface wear on any roll that’s fighting the web instead of carrying it.

Where the bill finally comes due

Winders, cutters, and stackers. A misaligned winder produces uneven tension and telescoped ends. A misaligned anvil cutter produces bad cuts, torn notches, and breakage. Uneven stacks and jamming at the very end of the line are usually the accumulated bill for everything upstream.

Rolling mills. Same physics, heavier iron. Stands out of level and square give you inconsistent gauge, uneven thickness, tension problems, vibration, and scrap — plus premature wear and failure on rolls, bearings, and chocks.

Cable and wire lines. Payoffs, capstans, sheaves, and take-ups that aren’t in plane with each other put a twist into the product and wear the sheave grooves unevenly. On insulated product, that shows up as concentricity problems you’ll blame on the extruder.

Why laser roll alignment starts with a tracker, not a straightedge

Traditional methods work. We’re not going to pretend otherwise — piano wire, optics, and machinist levels built the industrial world. The problem is what they cost you in time and what they can’t see.

Optical methods generally reference floor monuments. Concrete cracks, settles, and shifts, and normal operating vibration walks machinery relative to those monuments over the years. A monument set when the line was commissioned is a historical record, not a datum. If you reference it without verifying it, you inherit every millimeter the building has moved since.

A laser tracker measures a distance and two angles to a reflective target and returns X, Y, Z coordinates — thousands of them, anywhere we can see. We establish level to gravity with the tracker’s own inclination sensor, define the machine centerline from features we’ve verified are still trustworthy, and then measure your actual line as it sits today. Not as the drawing says it sits. As it is.

What laser roll alignment buys you

That gets us three things a single-purpose tool doesn’t:

1. Everything in one coordinate system. Roll parallelism, squareness to centerline, elevations, frame straightness, bearing bore positions, and foundation points all live in the same measurement. We can tell you whether the roll is out or whether the frame holding the roll is out — a distinction that decides whether you shim for an hour or plan a real repair.
2. Live adjustment. With our software watching a target in real time, your millwright turns the jacking bolt and watches the number go to zero. No measure, calculate, adjust, re-measure, repeat. One pass, while the crew is already on the wrench.
3. A record you keep. Every job leaves you nominal, actual, and delta in tables and drawings. Next outage, we measure against your own baseline and you can see exactly what moved and how fast. That’s when alignment stops being a repair and starts being a trend you manage.

What it’s worth

Run the arithmetic with your own numbers, not ours. Take your scrap rate in the affected section, the bearings and rolls you replace in a year, and the hours the line runs below rated speed because of a known tracking issue. Add whatever an hour of unplanned downtime costs you — for most manufacturers it’s a number that makes a laser roll alignment inspection look like a rounding error.

Misalignment is associated with roughly a third of bearing failures, and every bearing maker publishes the same damage patterns to prove it — SKF’s own failure guide is a good place to start. That’s not the leading cause of bearing death — lubrication is — but it’s the one you can eliminate permanently with a scheduled inspection instead of managing forever with a grease gun.

Put laser roll alignment on the schedule, not the breakdown

The best time to align a line is during planned maintenance, while it’s already down. The worst time is at 2 a.m. when a bearing is smoking and everybody’s guessing.

Put a laser roll alignment inspection on the same calendar as your outage. Measure the whole line, not the section that’s complaining. Fix what the data says to fix, in the order the data says to fix it, and keep the report.

We’re a mobile crew — we come to your plant, anywhere, and we’ll tell you straight what we find, including when the answer is “this doesn’t need what you think it needs.”

Contact us to get laser roll alignment on your next outage plan.

The post Your Line Doesn’t Have a Tracking Problem. It Has a Geometry Problem. appeared first on Select Laser Alignment.

Leveling and alignment of machinery and process equipment are essential for long-term performance, calibration, and accuracy. SLA’s highly trained technicians are experts in leveling and aligning machine bases, integrated production lines, rollers, conveyors, motors, shafts, couplings, bearings, and drives. Manufacturing industries such as automotive, printing, aerospace, metal stamping, injection molding, machining, and food processing require proper alignment and leveling to maintain production efficiency.

SLA’s Machine Alignment Services:

• Reduces Scrap and Waste
• Decreases Machine Downtime
• Improves Equipment and Process Line Efficiency
• Lowers Operating Costs

Select Laser Alignment Provides:

• Alignment, Inspections, and Analysis
• Advanced Tooling Including 3-Dimensional Metrology Tools—Laser Trackers, Laser Scanners, Measuring Arms
• Mechanical Services and Machine Installations

SLA will level and align injection mold machines, CNC lathes, tanks, extrusion lines, heat treating lines, conveyor packaging lines, and more.

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That’s where Select Laser Alignments laser tracker contractor services come into play. As a service provider for 3D metrology for refinery and petrochemical industries and many other industries that benefit from the speed and precision of the laser trackers. We have the capabilities to gather concentricity, ovality, dimensional changes, flange locations, equipment interferences and other important areas in need of inspection down to the thousandth (0.001”). We can diagnose equipment problems and help optimize your equipment. Select Laser Alignment can help optimize by:

• Shaft to shaft alignment
• Component to component alignment
• Foundation stability studies
• Thermal growth studies
• Machinery Installation
• Piping inspection, flatness analysis, & flange orientation
• Baseplate inspections & aid in field machining
• Internal gearbox & compressor alignment
• Bolt layout, centerline layout, & elevation benchmarks

Every dimensional metrology inspection comes with a written report and detailed drawings of the findings to help you optimize your process and machinery and to have a fast ROI.

Contact us to learn more about how Select Laser Alignment optimizes refineries and petrochemical plants with the use of our laser tracker services.

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When the manufacturing process is stopped due to machine misalignment, companies risk losing a significant amount of investment in the form of time delay and scraps. However, these costs can be avoided if companies take careful ownership of preventative maintenance, minimizing the likelihood of equipment failure or downtime drastically.

In fact, by adopting the preventative maintenance approach, quality management departments can also better ensure that products leaving the facility meet quality benchmarks, as well-maintained machines are the foundation of manufacturing processes. Besides, machine alignment significantly increases the lifespan of tools, which can be expensive to replace. For these reasons, companies have found it necessary to perform machine alignment regularly and efficiently.

Single-use tools vs. multi-function device

In the past, companies used to rely on traditional alignment methods that involved tools such as machinist levels, piano or tight wires, and optics (e.g., bore scopes, theodolites, etc.). While these tools worked well in most cases, they often served only single, dedicated function. Using these methods, calibration, and alignment would typically take days or even weeks to complete. It was also common to involve multiple instruments, which translated to higher costs and more time spent on setting up in each step.

Naturally, companies sought out better and faster ways for machine alignment to be done. In the early nineties, the use of laser trackers for industrial measurement became widespread. Compared to traditional methods, the laser tracker is a powerful device that can perform multiple measurement tasks in a much shorter time. By gathering X,Y,Z coordinates with the click of a button.

This device combines the capabilities of several traditional tools in one, including the ability to: check for plumb, level, squareness, and parallelism; verify and conduct positional checks of rotary axes and multi-axis heads; reposition a part on a table without a rotational bed; perform real-time adjustments of machine beds, rails, and ways; as well as measure bore alignment, coupling, and shaft alignment. More importantly, the laser tracker captures data points in a three-dimensional (3D) space, which provides users with higher precision and versatility in data usage.

Basic mechanics of a laser tracker

The laser tracker is a portable coordinate measuring machine (CMM) that is based on 3D coordinate technology. Fundamentally, these devices provide the benefits of CMMs with the added versatility of being portable, which allows the user to deploy wherever there is a need. Designed to handle larger working volumes, laser trackers offer extremely accurate measurements over long ranges. Put simply, a laser tracker establishes the precise location of a target in spherical space by measuring two angles and a distance, each time it takes a measurement. It does so by sending a laser beam to a retro-reflective target, which must be held against the object being measured. The return beam re-enters the laser tracker where the distance to the target can be determined using interferometry or phase shift analysis.

The horizontal and vertical angles to the target probe are determined using precision angular encoders attached to the mechanical axis of a gimbaled beam steering mechanism. Using the two angle measurements and distance determined by the laser, the laser tracker can report the coordinate location of the target probe to extremely high accuracy levels.

In addition, the laser tracker can follow or track the target probe as it moves in real time. This unique feature, coupled with the laser tracker’s ability to internally sample up to 16,000 times per second, enables the user to digitize data on complex surfaces or measure the location of moving objects.

In fact, laser trackers today have impressive measurement ranges and accuracies that provide users with more versatility and better results. For instance, the FARO^® Laser Tracker Vantage’s distance measuring range is 80m both ways (160m coverage), and at that range, it captures data at typical accuracies of up to 39 microns (0.039mm / 0.001”). Weighing just under 18kg, the Vantage offers portability and flexibility on measuring large parts, no matter where production is located within the plant. Manufacturers can achieve unprecedented speed and efficiency by capturing more with fewer device moves and shorter routines.

Laser Tracker in Machine Alignment Scenarios

The American Society of Mechanical Engineering established a set of standards for the correct and accepted methods to check and align machine tools with a laser tracker. Here are some documented scenarios of alignment being performed on a variety of machining centers, machinery, and other equipment.

American Society of Mechanical Engineering, ASME B5.54-2005 Methods for Performance Evaluation of Computer Numerically Controlled Machining Centers, 2005.

1. Machining Centers

Horizontal/Vertical Machines, Bridge, Column, or Gantry-type Machines

On these machines, the laser tracker can be used to check for surface level, straightness, flatness, and squareness. The target is placed on the machine bed to capture measurements, and users can either adjustments in real-time, or obtain a complete set of points before adjusting the machine bed afterwards.

For tool alignment, the target can be placed in the spindle, chuck, or quill of the machining center. Measurements can also be obtained by placing the target on a pin nest that gets mounted directly into the drill of the machine. Alternatively, it can also be placed in a ‘puck’, or a drift nest, which can be glued on to a moving bed. As the target sits on its respective locations, 3D data points are collected while the machine travels through a range of movements to check for alignment issues. Apart from checking the machine bed, the laser tracker can also be used to check for plumb, level, or ensure parallelism in the rails. Additionally, conducting 3D volumetric accuracy checks and re-mapping the machine are possible functions.

Boring Mills, Jig Borers, Gantry Drills, Routers, and Lathes

The same checks of levelling, squareness, alignment, and 3D volumetric accuracy checks can be made on these machines. For lathes laser trackers can perform turning center alignment by tracking a target that is affixed on to the headstock with a drift nest. Much like how machine beds are measured, data points are collected as the headstock turns, moving incrementally towards the tailstock in a circular fashion. Adjustments are then made to align the tailstock with the headstock accordingly.

2. Machinery

Presses – Platen, Stamping, and Brake Press

With presses, laser trackers are useful for checking perpendicularity and parallelism of posts, as well as platen parallelism. The ends of each pole on each side of the planes are measured and compared to ensure it lines up square (between pole and plane) and parallel (between planes) respectively. Any deviation can be corrected based on the readings acquired.

Rolls

Laser trackers are also effective at conducting shaft alignment checks in roller mill machinery. Shafts need to be in proper alignment and orientation in order to function well, and the laser tracker allows such checks to be performed easily on a roll (or series of rolls). Real-time adjustments can be made as measurements are being taken. Data points at both ends of a shaft are acquired by placing the target on the cylinder. The information collected by the software allows users to identify the movement that is required to put each roll back into alignment.

3. Other Equipment

Calibration of Robots

In this application, the target is ‘held’ by the robot while measurements are being taken. The laser tracker dynamically tracks the target as the robot moves through its programed path. By analyzing the data points, a user can tell how much the robot has deviated from its nominal path, thereby directing him on remapping, calibration, or error compensation actions that will allow the robot to move properly through its range of motions.

Drivelines – including Gearboxes, Shafts, and Couplings

In the assembly of power generation equipment like a driveline, the laser tracker can ensure that components are lined up correctly, according to design. The laser tracker is mounted with a magnet to hang off the side of a machine, so that it has a direct line of sight to all the features of interest. In this manner, the laser tracker can take measurements of the driveline while it remains on the machine tool. As checks are being made right on the shop floor, adjustments can be made without taking the set-up apart, which saves time and eliminates the need for rework.

Evidently, the laser tracker is an effective complement for the practice of preventative maintenance, which reduces downtime, enables cost-savings, and improves the quality of output. It is a robust tool that can be deployed anywhere on the shop floor, the laser tracker’s multiple functions can suitably replace a variety of hand tools. At Select Laser Alignment we have vast experience in utilizing laser trackers to their full capabilities and can align anything, anywhere, anytime. Give us a call.

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Select Laser Alignment utilizes the latest measurement technology to achieve the tolerance set by our customers. Every installation job is different, and Select Laser Alignment has the necessary skills, experience, and equipment to achieve accurate and precise installations for all forms of machinery. This could be levelling bed plates, alignment of large machinery or test equipment, even positioning complex particle accelerator components to incredibly accurate tolerances.

Select Laser Alignment installs Equipment in all environments from construction sites to temperature controlled clean rooms in precision manufacturing environments.

All our installations will be accompanied by a detailed measurement report on completion of the work, showing nominal data, actual locations, and delta data in graphical and tabular formats. The final reports are fully customizable and tailored to the customer’s specific requirements on each installation. Contact us to discuss your needs!

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How often should alignment checks be performed?

There are guidelines for how often the alignment should be checked. According to Mr. John Piotrowski and his Shaft Alignment Handbook, for newly installed machinery the alignment should be checked following 500 to 2000 hours of off and on operation, or 1–3 months of nonstop operation. If there was no found shift in the alignment, then the following check should be made between 4500 and 9000 hours of off and on operation or 6 months to 1 year of nonstop operation. If no found shift occurred at any time, then measurements should be made every 2–3 years. This pace can of course be influenced by factors such as equipment importance etc.

If a mediocre shift in alignment happened at any time, then the equipment should be aligned to within tolerances. If a massive shift happened, then additional research should begin to determine what is causing the movement (root cause analysis). For example, any sign of excessive wear will also be a sign of “inadequate” machinery installation.

The importance of reporting.

To have reports on alignment checks is critical to avoid repeating the same install errors, or to find and follow up on the same problems over and over. As you of course know, there is no precise answer to the headline question. But the reporting will give you a solid understanding of what occurs on the way and help to keep your machinery aligned in optimal conditions as long as possible. We will provide you with an in-depth written report and drawings on every alignment check to compare as the equipment ages.

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