Vibralign Blog

"shaft alignment"| Laser Shaft Alignment| Precision Shaft Alignment

By Brad Case on April 16, 2020

During several recent technical support calls, regarding the Fixturlaser Laser Kit, the clients asked the same questions about the LEDs on the sensors and several warnings that pop-up on the display. Others may have the same questions, so I thought it worthwhile to discuss here. S & M Sensor LEDs: The amber LEDs illuminate when […]

training| VibrAlign Training

By Trent Phillips on April 10, 2020

Company assets require a wise and balanced investment from cradle to grave.  Otherwise, the asset will not consistently perform to required expectations, deteriorate over time and return limited value to stake holders as a result.  Companies put a lot of strategy and effort to obtain the greatest Return on Capital Employed (ROCE).  ROCE is a […]

By Stan Riddle on March 31, 2020

Like many people worldwide, the ACOEM VibrAlign Training Team is grounded while we wait this virus out.  It is the right thing to do-for ourselves, our families, neighbors, co-workers, and nation. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t help YOU!  If you have questions about alignment, vibration, or reliability of your equipment, WE CAN HELP!  How? […]

"coupling tolerance"| Coupling Values| Precision Shaft Alignment| coupling alignment

By VibrAlign Author on March 24, 2020

  In power transmission, a coupling is a device used to connect a driving machine, such as a motor, engine, or turbine, to a driven machine, such as a fan, pump, compressor, or other machine. There are numerous styles of couplings, each with specific design characteristics, that make them suitable for their respective applications. All […]

Preventive maintance| bearing failures| lubrication| bearing failure

By Tom Cummings on March 17, 2020

A maintenance technicians’ job (function) is to keep the machines that they maintain operating reliably. Alignment, balancing, and lubrication are some examples of how they are able to keep machinery reliable. Proper lubrication of machines is absolutely critical to any reliability program. In this article, I would like to discuss how a lubricant reduces friction. […]

Pre-Alignment| Precision Shaft Alignment| machinery diagnostics

By Mike Arnold on March 4, 2020

ACOEM-VibrAlign has shared over 100 separate blog posts and over 1 million YouTube views on Pre-Alignment. Thus, we can all agree it is an important topic and the key to a successful precision shaft alignment job. No matter if you are using a Straight Edge, Dial Indicators, or the latest and greatest Laser Shaft Alignment […]

shims| Precision Shaft Alignment| precut shims| Precision Maintenance

By John Pasko on February 20, 2020

Years ago, an automotive oil filter company’s ad campaign, capitalized on the phrase “pay me now, or pay me later”. The premise was that you could pay less upfront for an inferior oil filter, and then pay again because the oil filter would fail, and your vehicle’s engine would require an overhaul. Or, you could […]

Vibration Analysis| rotor unbalance| unbalance

By Stan Riddle on February 13, 2020

By now, if you’ve kept up with the VibrAlign balancing “how-to” blogs, you should see that balancing is mostly just a math problem – counteracting forces.  But we haven’t discussed when the balance job is through. When I started balancing fans many years ago, I stopped balancing when: The fan owner said, “that’s much better”, […]

the validity rule| "repeatability"| Precision Shaft Alignment

By Michael Keohane on February 5, 2020

The validity rule is an important concept in precision shaft alignment. It can be used to confirm that your readings are accurate and is why we don’t have to rotate a full 360 degrees in order to get accurate alignment information. Here is a previous blog post with an embedded video that discusses dial indicator […]

machinery diagnostics| condition monitoring| OneProd Nest| machinery health

By Chris Troutt on January 28, 2020

Once you have moved your data back into the Nest, after a Route has been collected, you may want to provide a report or reports to different parts of an organization. The Nest has several ways of generating a couple different types of custom reports. For your discussion we will focus on a global report […]

Wind Turbine Alignment| Verti-Zontal Process| adjustable chocks

By Brad Case on January 15, 2020

  Precision shaft alignment of wind turbine generators mounted on adjustable chocks is as straightforward as when aligning rotating machinery mounted on chocks down at ground level. In the case of a recent NXA Training Class in a Vestas V82 we knew before going up-tower that one revolution of the adjustable chocks equals 1mm. Also, […]

"thermal growth targets"| "compressor alignment"| Dynamic Movement

By VibrAlign Author on January 9, 2020

The two main types of compressors are dynamic and positive displacement. The positive displacement compressor is probably the one you’re most familiar with.  It traps gas in a volume and then decreases that volume.  The decrease in volume causes a rise in pressure. A dynamic compressor uses a rotating element (usually called an impeller) which […]

machine base flatness| compressor frame flatness| geometric measurement| Repeatability

By VibrAlign Author on January 2, 2020

In a previous blog written by Brad Case (Sept 24, 2019), he explained how to perform a repeatability test and why it is good idea to do so. Here are few other items that have contributed to repeatability issues. 1)      The top rails were not sufficiently clean prior to taking readings. Paint was not removed, […]

machinery diagnostics| pump vibration| Smart Machine Checker| bearing defects| bearing installation

By Tom Shelton on December 16, 2019

At a recent Fixturlaser Smart Machine Checker (SMC) training class, one particular pump came up during the discussions. This pump has been “a problem child” for years. It had been rebuilt recently by one of the class attendees. The mechanic had rebuilt the pump “just as it had come apart” and was certain the impeller […]

condition monitoring| OneProd Nest| data collection

By Chris Troutt on December 9, 2019

Setting up routes is a very easy process in the ONEPROD NEST software and allows you to move machines into any order to allow for expeditious data collection. However, sometimes points need to be rearranged within the machine. Take the gearbox below for example.  Due to its size you don’t want to have to walk […]