Lasers Ensure Perpendicularity, Improve Bearing Bore Quality

Hamar Laser’s laser scanners have enabled Hi-Tech Compressor and Pump Products to achieve consistent tolerance readings where dial indicators struggled. 

Hi-Tech’s management team (operations director Adam Cojocaru, left; director of quality Don Weidemann, middle; and president Todd Pollazzi, right) credit Hamar Laser for improving the quality and reducing the labor involved in refurbishing of reciprocating compressors.Photos courtesy of Hi-Tech Compressor and Pump Products.

Hi-Tech Compressor and Pump Products is a small company with big capabilities, including full-service machining and in-house thermal spray. It recently improved its quality control capabilities by purchasing a laser-based metrology solution, immediately putting it to use to improve the consistency of perpendicularity and alignment measurements for bearing bores in a reciprocating compressor.

This application was a reconditioning job for a service company that specializes in reciprocating compressors used for P.E.T. bottle blowing. These units’ multi-throw frames are expensive, so being able to repair the bearing to better-than-original condition with thermal spray represents a huge savings for the owner. Tolerances are tight, and maintaining perpendicularity is essential.

“They have three in-line bearings on a single shaft, so if there is any misalignment at all, the techs can feel it when they slide the parts together,” says Don Weidemann, Hi-Tech’s director of quality. He initially designed a custom fixture using dial indicators to check the bores, but the extended length of the fixture and indicator arms made it heavy and sensitive to angular movement. Inconsistent, less accurate readings led him to pursue a laser-based quality control system instead.