(gentle music)
- Hi, I'm Steve Matthews with ACOEM.
Today, we're gonna go through a precision shaft alignment
with the AT-200 laser Shaft Alignment System for ACOEM.
First thing to cover here is our initial setup.
In this system,
as with all of our systems,
we have a two-laser system.
So there's a stationery sensor,
and a moveable sensor.
Each sensor has a sensor, and each side has a laser
firing at the other.
So the initial setup here, of course,
is mounting the chain brackets,
or optional magnetic brackets to the shafts.
And what we have is a large sensor,
it's 1.2 inches.
And so, getting everything roughly set up,
is fairly simple as moving the M, or the S sensor
up and down on the post to get each side roughly
in the middle.
And you can see the middle of the sensor range
is marked by this little triangle.
So,
that completes our initial setup.
Now, we'll go over to the app.
And finish the setup and take measurements.
So here on the horizontal shaft alignment app,
the first thing we're gonna do is,
we turned our sensors on to get started here.
And over on the app,
what we'll do is check that the sensors
are connected to the app, via Bluetooth.
And if we touch on the settings icon,
we can see here that there's a check mark
for each of the serial numbers of these M and S sensors.
So we know that it's connected.
We also can tell that it's connected up here
with the values next to the S and M.
There's a little green light indicating that
the sensors are seeing the lasers.
And that there are values on the screens.
So the final step here in the process
is you wanna make sure that the sensors
are square to one another within about one degree.
There are values on the screen to indicate that.
So for example here,
I can look and see that my S sensor is at 14.5 degrees.
And M sensor is at 14.4 degrees.
So, that's certainly close enough for us to get started.
Now, the final part of the setup is to input
the dimensions of the machine.
So, that's this measurement icon here.
Take my tape measure here.
The first step is the distance between the M sensor
and the S sensor.
Which we have as seven inches.
We wanna get this dimension within about
the closest eight of an inch.
And then we have between the M sensor,
and the center of the coupling.
This value defaults to half of the value
between S and the M sensor.
And in this case, that is correct.
If the sensors are not mounted symmetrically
on either side of the coupling, you can change this value.
Three and half.
So then we have between the M sensor,
and the front feet of the moveable machine.
We have these, the demonstrator marked here
as movable and stationery.
Generally your moveable machine is an electric motor.
So the distance between M sensor
and the front feet here is, in this case, zero.
And then, front feet to rear feet on the moveable machine.
And I have seven for that.
With this alignment tool,
the user interface will generally highlight
in yellow or green,
the icon in which should be the next step of the process.
So you can see I got the check mark.
Our next step here is to select a tolerance.
We select a tolerance based on machine speed.
The faster rotating machinery operates,
the more close the alignment tolerance should be.
So we'll select 1800 as a tolerance.
And now we got all of our setup complete.
Now there are a couple of features
that we'll go through here that are unique to the AT-200.
And we'll do that before we take measurements here.
And if I touch on the machine,
I get a couple of things that I can do here.
Number one, is if I touch on the stationery machine,
I can select a machine type that matches up
with the type of alignment that I'm doing.
So for example here, I've selected a pump.
The other thing I can do, is on the motor side,
you can select different colors to show on the motor.
And finally, in the coupling icon,
there is an opportunity for us
to look at alignment tolerances in different ways.
So the standard way we look at alignment tolerance is,
is an angle and offset at the coupling.
This is for close-coupled equipment.
In space, or shaft alignments,
where you have a spacer shaft, or a jack shaft,
we can look at that alignment in terms of
an angle and an angle.
So it's a different way to look at the tolerances.
And that's a feature that's built in to this AT-200.
There's also an opportunity for us to look at angularity
in terms of gaps.
So, so many thousandths over the diameter of the coupling.
So just some different ways that you can look at tolerances
based on what your typical use case might be.
So, today we'll just stick with our standard
angle and offset.
And then the other thing that we can do here is,
input thermal growth tolerances.
We won't go through that specifically.
But there is the opportunity in an AT-200
to put in offsets to compensate for dynamic growth.
So now we got everything set up.
I'm gonna go to my measurement icon.
And the final thing I'll cover here
is the different measurement methods
that we have in an AT-200.
Today we're gonna do this alignment in express mode.
Express mode is helpful if you're operating
the tool by yourself.
It takes the data automatically.
You can see here it has begun sampling the data,
as I'm standing here.
I'm gonna just go back.
And show the other methods here.
We have tri-point, clock mode,
and clock mode without angles.
And there are some specific applications
where these options are favorable
to the tri-point or the express.
Again today, we're gonna finish the alignment
in the express mode.
The difference between express and tri-point
is primarily that
you have to engage the measurement with
a physical press of the button, or icon, in tri-point.
Although the measurement methods are similar.
So again, we'll go back and do this alignment
in express.
And when I roll it down, roll it back up and hold it still,
that's when the measurement starts.
It's important to hold the shaft still
while the measurement is taking place.
So, we rotate outside the red zone.
And again, once I hold that shaft still,
it will automatically begin measuring.
And now, I can start anywhere and stop anywhere.
In this case, I'm gonna stop in the horizontal plane,
because I want for my values to be live
and horizontal plane when I go to do my adjustments.
But with this tool, we can start anywhere,
and stop anywhere,
as long as you rotate outside that red zone.
So now we got our alignment results presented.
At the top, we have angle and offset for the motor.
At the bottom, we have angle and off,
I'm sorry, angle and offset for the vertical.
Angle and offset for the horizontal.
And then, the correction value is here.
Now, the other thing I'm gonna do here
is re-orient this picture.
Initially I had this picture oriented
with the moveable element on my right side
for my view from this side of the machine.
What I've done just now, is re-orient the picture.
So that the moveable element is on this side
for the orientation from this side of the machine.
For the benefit of the camera.
So you can see this,
when we evaluate this data,
we can see that all of the alignment values
are out of tolerance.
So, we'll need to make these corrections.
And the way that we do that is to go to shimming.
So typically we make our vertical alignment first.
And then in our case what we'll do is what
we at ACOEM call a vertizontal alignment.
Meaning, we'll do a vertical adjustment
and a horizontal adjustment at the same time.
So here we have the vertical values.
And it shows very clearly with an arrow,
whether the shims should go in,
or the shims should come out.
So this makes some sense of the plus and minus numbers
that you saw on the first presentation of results.
Here it's very clear whether that means
I have to add shim, or takeaway shim.
So we'll make these adjustments,
I have some shims prepared here.
20 thousandths in the front.
And 35 in the rear.
Now at this point, I'm gonna leave these bolts loose
here on the moveable element.
Because my next move is gonna be a horizontal adjustment.
We'll do that by touching the horizontal icon
that's highlighted.
And momentarily we'll have live results
with arrows that are scaled as far as,
in terms of how far I have to move the machine.
So the rear feet of this machine need to move
approximately 29,000ths of an inch.
So I'll start making that adjustment slowly,
so I don't overshoot.
Getting close.
Once I get close, you'll see again, those arrows get,
are scaled.
I've gone just a little bit too far.
And as I get close, you can see that we have
the tolerance values,
the angle and offset, starting to switch
from red to green and orange.
Orange means within two times the tolerance.
And green, of course, means within the tolerance.
So as I get this dialed in,
now I'm within tolerance.
So, I'm under .7 mills per inch angle.
And under 4.0 mills offset.
Again, the results are in thousandths of an inch.
So then, we'll just tighten this up.
And finally, we'll remeasure.
And once we remeasure, we can document this alignment.
So once again in express mode,
the data begins automatically once I drop
the sensors below three o'clock,
and then come back above it.
Rotate outside the red zone.
See the lollipop turns green,
that means I've gone far enough to take another measurement.
And again, while the measurement sampling,
we wanna keep the shaft still and not rotating.
Then we get to our final measurement position.
And we'll have our final results here in just a second.
So now we have, everything is in tolerance.
You can tell that two ways.
Green check mark on both the vertical
and the horizontal.
And then, the angle and offset values,
the coupling icons have all turned green.
So the last thing that we're gonna do here
is document this alignment.
And we'll do that,
number one by saving,
and I gotta flip this around to do this.
We'll save the shaft alignment data.
And then, we'll create a report.
So those are kind of,
it's kind of two steps for creating the report.
I'm gonna call this AT-200.
Okay.
That just saved my shaft alignment results.
And then, I'm gonna create a PDF report by,
I have an opportunity here to put in a plant name,
a machine name, a user name, and notes.
I'm gonna skip that.
But what I am gonna do is select my AT-200 values,
a picture of this machine,
and a saw foot.
And then, I'm gonna save that.
That creates a PDF.
And in my PDF report,
we'll have the saw foot values,
picture of the machine,
and the alignment results.
So that completes an alignment with the AT-200.
If you have questions about this product,
or any other of our ACOEM laser alignment,
or condition monitoring products,
please contact at the details below.
(gentle music)