Conquering Large Machine Tool Downtime with Fast Geometry Checks

Everyone knows that proper machine tool calibration improves part quality and reduces scrap rates and part setup time. The problem is the huge tradeoff between taking large machines offline for routine PM calibration checks and keeping them churning out parts.

Doing geometry calibration checks using traditional methods can take many days, if not weeks. Too often, PM checks are only done after a machine crash, which is hardly preventive maintenance. Faster alignment equipment, however, can make it much easier to maintain a good PM program.

An industry pioneer, Hamar Laser has been making some of the world’s most accurate alignment systems for more than 50 years. Renowned for being extremely fast and easy to use, checking alignments with these systems means PM checks can get done without sacrificing uptime.

Hamar Laser manufactures an extensive line of scan-plane and straight-line laser alignment systems for almost any application, including machining centers, boring mills, VTLs, lathes, presses, paper machines and many more. These innovative lasers offer many benefits including:

• Quickly checking the entire length of machining center axes, not just small sections of them, as with ballbars or cylindrical squares.
• Checking the entire length of lathes to headstocks, not just the test bar length, using Hamar’s simultaneous 4-axis lathe alignment system.
• Reducing alignment times by up to 70%, making that “tough PM choice” much easier.
• Quickly and easily checking linear and rotary axes on multi-axis machining centers or multi-turn machines with fewer setups.
• Checking the geometry in under 2 hours after machine crashes to see if the machine has to be taken offline or not.

Hamar Laser will be demonstrating its highly accurate, ultra-fast alignment lasers at IMTS 2018 booth 135436.