In this article, you will learn about:
- What happens when rolls are not properly aligned
- Preventative Maintenance is quick and precise
- Decrease downtime, increase productivity
When an editor yells, “Stop the Presses,” it’s usually because breaking news needs to get into print before the morning edition. However, if the plant manager or operations manager yells stop the press, well, they’ve got trouble.
Most likely your machine is out of alignment or defective product is coming off the line. Maybe the words on your paper are running off the page as the paper is wrinkling. Needless to say, production has just shut down costing you time and money.
Many manufacturing facilities operate equipment that contains rollers, idlers press drums, and web handling systems. The alignment of roll and web systems is important to the efficient operation of these systems to improve productivity and reduce production downtime.
One very common industrial application is verifying the position and alignment of rolls and web handling equipment. In these applications, there may be many rollers over which material passes as it proceeds through a specific manufacturing process. An example is a laminating operation in which a substrate such as pliable plastic or metallic foil is treated and coated as it passes through a process line. If the feed rolls, takes up rolls, prints rolls, nips rolls, and other rolls that transport this material through the process are not well aligned, the material will not track properly and may wander off the machine resulting in downtime and wasted material. Misalignment of the rolls through the machine may not be enough to cause tracking problems, but may still stretch the material more on one side than the other, which would need to be rejected for poor product quality.
For a continuous sheet of material moving through a system of rollers, it is critical that the left edge, center, and right edge follow similar path lengths – a misaligned roll anywhere in the system may cause stretching of the material at that location. Some plastic materials are highly compliant and will spring back so roll alignment is less critical here. Other materials such as copper foil, Kevlar films, and metalized substrates are less forgiving and if stretched across misaligned rollers may be permanently deformed and will not regain their original dimension. For these reasons, the alignment of roll systems is very important and a laser alignment system is an ideal tool for this task.
You’ve heard that phrase often enough. The Pinpoint Laser Microgage is an ideal way to make quick, precise and quantitative measurements over a large machine with many rollers. With minimal practice, the laser measuring and alignment process becomes very quick, allowing plant personnel to optimize their roll and web systems on a regular basis and ultimately reduce machine wear, breakdowns, and lost production time.
For over a decade, Pinpoint has been working with customers to solve roll and web alignment problems. Out of this effort, we have developed and refined a line of laser alignment products that provide a precise and efficient means of checking machinery. These products are easy to set up and use by plant or production personnel right on the factory floor. Much of the guess work and subjectivity of tradition alignment techniques are eliminated because the laser Microgage delivers precise, quantitative data to correct machinery flaws.
Roll alignment has two basic components: roll straightness and parallelism in both the vertical and horizontal directions. Straightness is simply a measure of each individual roll in a system to see if it is worn, damaged, sagging, or deflecting under its own weight.
Checking roll parallelism in the vertical orientation can be accomplished with Pinpoint’s Vertical Roll Adjuster. This roll alignment tool is simply placed on top of a roller and an adjustment made by turning a small knurled knob to zero the device. A digital micrometer displays the leveling error to a precision of 0.001 inch and this tool can be used for comparing or repositioning rolls in the vertical orientation. The Pinpoint Roll Adjuster is easy and precise to use in all roll alignment projects. Roll position in the horizontal plane is equally important and the Laser Microgage is combined with the 90-Line Right Angle Beam Bender.
The 90-Line forms a precise right angle laser beam and this new reference beam can be swing through a full circle to locate and measure the position of rollers in a production system. Measurements at each roller’s end are taken and the difference between these readings is calculated to map the position of every roller in the horizontal plane. If rollers need adjustment, the Microgage system can be used in place to monitor the adjustment and verify that the new roll position is correct.
For more information on roll and web alignment, please contact our engineering group at (978) 532-8001.
