Many manufacturing facilities use equipment that incorporates rollers as fundamental components in operations such as printing, coating, extrusion or lamination. For example, texturing, feeding, and winding rollers are essential in the production and processing of rubber and thin film plastics to achieve proper thickness, texture or finish.
Proper alignment of rollers is critical for ensuring smooth operations, minimizing wear and tear and enhancing overall efficiency. In addition, correct alignment helps prevent issues such as excessive vibration, uneven load distribution, overheating and damage to other components.
Problems with Misalignment
Lamination operations, commonly employed in packaging, printing and manufacturing applications, rely on the accurate positioning and alignment of rollers for consistent quality, proper bonding and efficient production.
If the rollers involved in the lamination operation are not properly aligned, problems may arise with uneven lamination, material misfeeding and jams. For instance, misalignment may cause the material to track inaccurately, resulting in it drifting off the machine, which leads to material waste.
Misalignment could also cause uneven stretching of the material. While some compliant materials may recover, others, such as copper foil, Kevlar films and metalized substrates, can become permanently deformed and fail to regain their original dimensions. When wound onto a large take-up spool, stretched material and uneven distribution can result in poor product quality
Laser Alignment
Laser alignment systems can accurately measure misalignments to within 0.0001 inch (3 microns), which is important when working with delicate materials such as Kevlar film, thin metalized foil and thin plastic films. They are quantitative and more efficient and user-friendly than traditional alignment methods and adjustable to accommodate various roller diameters and materials. Since this technology is highly versatile it can be adapted to many web and roll production lines.
Uses in Roller Alignment
Laser alignment systems consist of a laser transmitter that projects a laser reference beam and a receiver that scans it, providing readings of displacement across the laser beam in both horizontal and vertical axes. The digital information regarding the X and Y position of the laser beam is used to calculate flatness, runout, straightness, parallelism and other geometric alignment parameters. The data is displayed on a readout in real-time and can be downloaded for further analysis.
In roller alignment, a laser system can check:
- Roller straightness – A laser system quickly maps the roller’s profile by recording height or surface deflections. A roller with a straight surface will yield consistent readings, while a crowned roller will produce different readings in the middle compared to the edges.
- Parallelism – For rollers to be parallel to each other, their axes must lie within in the same plane. There are two planes – vertical and horizontal. Laser systems are more effective than conventional bubble levels at checking manufacturing lines that may have settled over time or have crowned rollers.
Mounted on a swiveling base, the transmitter directs a laser beam across the top of the rollers. Height readings are taken to the right and left of each roller, and the difference in these readings indicate how the roller is positioned relative to the reference plane created by the lasers.
Regular checks, preventative maintenance and fine-tuning of roller set-ups using laser alignment can ensure that rollers remain correctly parallel and aligned for optimum operations.
