I recently received a support call from a nearby client, the issue was that the precision shaft alignment of a right-angle gear reducer to a line shaft was taking up to 12 hours (using another brand alignment tool) with little to no success. There are about a dozen of these units in this facility. This…
Read MoreOne of the most enjoyable parts of precision shaft alignment training for me as a trainer, is the field portion. This provides the opportunity to build confidence that what the students learn in the classroom, really works in the field! In a recent Fixturlaser GO Basic class, the decision was made to align two recently…
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We all have run into situations where things just aren’t working out the way we think they should. Kind of like not seeing the forest for the tree’s. Part of our profession as trainers at VibrAlign is fielding support calls when a client has questions or has reached the point of frustration where they just…
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When we trainers conduct training, the first thing we want to know is what is your cause of frustration or “pain” when performing a precision shaft alignment. What we consistently hear is repeatability as the foremost cause of frustration. First the laser says add shims, then take them out, then add and so on. In…
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Proactive Maintenance includes a number of maintenance strategies, such as Precision Maintenance, Reliability Based Maintenance, Reliability Centered Maintenance, and Root Cause Failure Analysis. The idea is to anticipate and solve problems before they become problems. Reliability Centered maintenance would begin with a study done on a piece of equipment to gain understanding of all its…
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Predictive Maintenance, also known as Condition Based Maintenance or affectionately known as “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” also has its own set of pro’s and con’s. The pro’s: Rotating equipment usually gives warning signs before failure. Vibration level or pattern changes, rise in temperature, wear detected via oil analysis, performance change, motor current…
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Preventive Maintenance, also known as planned maintenance, scheduled maintenance, calendar based maintenance, historical maintenance, etc. has its own set of pro’s and con’s. The theory is machinery has a life cycle. The probability of failure increases as the machine ages so maintenance needs to be performed prior to failure to extend its life and avoid…
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In the current highly competitive global economy we live in, there is always a drive to get the competitive edge. One way is to develop a maintenance strategy that will improve safety, meet production goals, increase uptime, increase plant efficiency and thus increase plant profitability. There are four basic maintenance strategies: Breakdown Maintenance Preventive Maintenance…
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As a technical trainer for VibrAlign, I do a lot of reading in order to hopefully continuously improve. I am also very curious. Quite often I run across articles I believe are worth sharing. This article was on LinkedIn, an IDCON reliability and maintenance discussion written by Mr. Ken Latino. In case you have not…
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It really doesn’t matter the industry; industrial maintenance technicians suffer the same frustrations when performing a precision shaft alignment. Our team of trainer’s travel all over the country conducting training classes for paper mills, steel mills, chemical plants, gas and oil, etc. What we hear is universal across all industry. “I can’t get repeatable results,…
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Past maintenance & production issues found in the industrial or manufacturing environment are still prevalent even in today’s equipment reliability focus. The major contributors to equipment failure remain the same, misalignment, unbalance and assembly errors. Another is lubrication, Mr. Stan Riddle addressed this in one his blogs “Machinery Vibration Problems part 3 – Lubrication”. Let’s…
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Although shaft distortion due to misalignment affects more than just the electric motor, here are a few things that are a telltale signs you may have an alignment issue. In a perfectly straight shaft, the centers of each shaft cross-section from end-to-end of the shaft lie on a straight line. A shaft is bent if…
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I have been in industrial maintenance longer than I have not. A portion of that time was spent in Maintenance Management. One lesson I learned was, that in order for a team leader (or company as a whole) to be successful, the entire team needs to be successful. I tend to simplify things, maybe to…
Read MoreIn today’s lean manufacturing, RCM (Reliability Centered Maintenance) is becoming more prevalent. Condition Monitoring is a big part of RCM. However, continuous monitoring is typically only done on “critical” equipment which amounts to approximately 20-25% of the equipment. The other 75-80% might get picked up during vibration rounds, which will then have to be analyzed,…
Read MoreI love my job, I love conducting precision shaft alignment training at various facilities across this great country and interacting with industrial maintenance technicians that have suffered through or are suffering through the same issues I did. I love proving over and over again that the VibrAlign method of precision shaft alignment is the best…
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If you’re working to maintain machines, Acoem USA wants to help.
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