X-Series™ Adds Value for Leading MRO

Hamar Laser’s X-Series™ Shaft Alignment Systems are unbelievable alignment tools, backed up by outstanding customer service. These rugged, well-designed systems are extremely easy to learn and use and speed up alignment jobs, which make us and our customers very happy!

Eastern Industrial Automation (EIA) is a leading MRO company offering branded products and superb services with a “can-do, will-do” mindset. We represent more than 1,000 global manufacturers and offer an industry-leading portfolio of application, engineering and maintenance services. What sets us apart from other companies like Applied, Grainger and Motion is that we offer services in addition to parts.

I manage a skilled team who do vibration analysis, dynamic balancing services, laser alignment services, and mechanical services. For many years, we’ve been using X-Series (formerly branded “Stealth”) systems to perform laser shaft alignments for customers. As a distributor for Hamar Laser, we also sell X-Series systems to our customers who choose to do their own alignments. In both cases, the X-Series systems are part of our added value, giving us advantages over other companies.

On the service side, X-Series tools help us because they’re so fast, easy to use and reliable. Our job is to keep our customers’ equipment operating at peak efficiency for maximum productivity and profitability, and the X-Series tools help us do that with every alignment.

Hamar Laser’s products are made in Connecticut, which is very convenient for us, another big advantage. I can only say good things about Hamar’s support. For repairs and calibrations, I send my unit to Hamar’s facility in Danbury and usually get it back within three days. Sometimes, when we have a customer that’s in a real bind, we’ll drive the unit to Danbury and wait until it gets repaired. You can’t beat that service!

On the sales side, the X-Series helps because we’re offering the very best product for customers who want to do their own alignments. I’ve used several other shaft alignment products. The X-Series systems are by far the easiest to learn and use because they’re very intuitive and self-explanatory.

They’re an easy sale once you’ve done the demo, and some people aren’t even looking for a demo, they’ll just say, “send me information,” and a purchase order shows up. Their pricing makes them a great value, and their return on investment is excellent. Three, four or five alignments and you’ve paid for the unit.

We’re continuing to expand and introduce the X-Series to our growing customer base. EIA has grown to nine locations throughout New England since our founding in 1963 and we’ve recently acquired facilities in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Our new customers are always favorably impressed with the X-Series.

We get a lot of inquiries for alignments, often from someone who’s looked at another shaft alignment system, an SKF unit, for instance. After we give them an X-Series demo, they see the difference and want the Hamar unit. The X-Series is frequently our entry point for sales of components and services for new customers.

Superior Alignment Systems

Whether on the service or sales side, X-Series systems are far superior to other shaft alignment tools that I’ve used from SKF, Easy-Laser, Fixturlaser and Pruftechnik. I use the X-Series about twice a week and know they’re much easier and friendlier to use.

An X-Series tool isn’t made of plastic. It’s a nice, solid piece of equipment made right here in the USA. The graphics are just unbelievable. When you move the motor, you’ll see the motor moving on the screen in real time. It shows parameters in red, yellow, and green and everybody understands that; there are no happy face icons like other tools.

The X-660 and X-770 models are 3-axis lasers. They use Hamar Laser’s Dual-Fan™ technology and are great value. The X-880 and X-990 models are 5-axis lasers. They use Dual-Beam™ technology and are great for 5-axis applications. It doesn’t take long to do an alignment, and the bigger the machine the better. Power plant operators like the X-880 and X-990 because they have large pieces of equipment and need to get everything done as fast as they can.

A couple of stories show the value of the X-Series. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge was having continuous issues with the bearings of the steam-driven turbine boiler feed pump in one of their power plants. After we checked the alignment, we had them heat it up. We checked the alignment again and, based on what we saw with thermal growth changes, made some adjustments to the alignment to compensate for that.

The previous service company couldn’t solve the problem, but because our X-Series system lets us quickly get and use data, we could watch what happened to the turbine as it heated up in real time. Their recurring bearing failures issue was fixed, just like that.

Sugarloaf, a ski resort in Maine, had been having issues with the jack shaft bearings on one of their lifts. The bearings had failed and been replaced several times already before we were called in. It was a three-machine train: a motor coupled to a gearbox, coupled to a jackshaft that went to the main drive. We found the root cause was that the motor was sitting almost .200” too high, with no shims underneath it.

Our X-Series unit has a tablet with a 10-inch screen, so we could see where the motor was sitting in relation to the other components. The customer liked the fact that we used a laser and that they could also see what we were telling them about the motor being too high. Some machining and adjusting solved the problem for good.

In all my years in the MRO field, I haven’t seen anything that comes close to the X-Series in terms of accuracy, ease of use and value. These are great alignment products and an important part of the added value that helps put Eastern above competitors. Hamar Laser is a great company with awesome people that make a truly unbelievable product line, and we’re thrilled to work with them.

X-880: Versatile, Accurate & Easy to Use

Brennan Industrial Contractors performs mechanical installations, rigging, millwright work and machinery moving, with skilled work crews composed largely of our own full-time personnel.

Our millwrights use Hamar’s X-880 Shaft Alignment Laser to align various kinds of machinery for our customers. The system is versatile, and we’re extremely happy with its accuracy and how easy it is for everybody on the crews to use. Brennan Industrial does a lot of Preventive Maintenance. The X-880 generates reports in a very professional format that’s easy to understand. This makes fast work of PM tasks and keeps everyone happy!

We highly recommend Hamar’s X-880 for anyone looking for a shaft alignment system that’s extremely versatile, accurate and easy to use.

Hamar’s X-Series: Trustworthy Alignment for Infrastructure Plants

Permian Sales has been serving the Permian Basin and Southeast New Mexico since 1994 with safety supplies, and we’re a proud reseller of Hamar Laser’s X-Series™ Shaft Alignment Systems. We’ve had a great experience with Hamar Laser for many years. They let us buy direct, and shipping to our customers is quick and trouble-free.

Our X-Series customer is one of the largest independent infrastructure companies in North America. The company has been using Hamar Laser products for many years and is very happy with them. They keep X-Series systems at 11 of their plants, where they use them to line up motors, pumps and other machinery quickly and accurately.

We’ve found that Hamar’s X-Series products work well and do exactly what they’re supposed to do, and they help our customer get their jobs done safely and effectively. It’s a good and trustworthy product line and speaks well for the people at Hamar Laser.

Hamar’s X-Series Enhances Predictive Maintenance Programs

As Director of Operations for SEMEQ Systems Corporation in North America, I take pride in leading a company redefining Predictive Maintenance with cutting-edge technology and innovation. Based in St. Louis, Missouri, SEMEQ is not just a service provider—we are pioneers in industrial machine health monitoring and a proud distributor of Hamar Laser’s X-Series™ Shaft Alignment Systems.

SEMEQ delivers comprehensive Predictive Maintenance solutions, from vibration analysis, oil analysis, and thermography to telemetry and ultrasound diagnostics. Our in-house development of wireless sensors, AI-powered diagnostics, and cloud-based predictive maintenance applications sets us apart. This unique combination makes SEMEQ a one-stop shop for companies looking to detect, analyze, and resolve machine health issues more effectively—and Hamar Laser’s X-Series™ technology is a key part of that strategy.

When I first saw Hamar Laser’s X-990 5-Axis Pro Laser System, what got my attention was the very high precision of the product and the many accessories that apply in different situations, like the shaft brackets and rotating magnetic base. I really liked the quality of the brackets and the material.

What we like about the X-990 is that it’s easy to set up and use. We like the auto-sweep feature. You don’t need to do a pre-alignment or “rough-in,” and you only need to rotate the system 90 degrees to get a good measurement. The system reduces the number of measurements and turns, which is helpful when you need to align a machine and cannot move the shaft. It gives you real-time data and is very accurate and repeatable. I like it much better than other shaft alignment tools I’ve used.

As a distributor, we have a good relationship with Hamar Laser. Terry Southall, our representative, is always there to support us, and knows a lot about the X-Series product line. We also like the BYO [Build Your Own] feature on the X-Series website, which makes it easy for us to prepare quotes.

From my expertise in vibration analysis, I know good machine alignment makes a difference on the equipment’s useful life. The X-Series tools will help users enjoy all the benefits of a Predictive Maintenance program, like longer coupling and bearing life, reduced machine downtime, and lower operating costs.

S-680 Stars in PM Role

I founded Condition Monitoring Services in 2005. Originally focused on vibration analysis services, we grew quickly and are now a true reliability resource company offering full-service Predictive Maintenance support but without being tied to specific services or products. We brought in Hamar Laser because they are a highly reputable American company with a superb five-axis laser shaft alignment system. Hamar is by far one of the best vendors we have worked with and the Stealth Series S-680* is the best shaft alignment product we have ever used.

One of the things we like best about the S-680* is that you can leave the heads in one position and perform the vertical and horizontal corrections simultaneously with live values. At first I was skeptical you could do this. My first alignment with the S-680* was at a solar generating facility—3,600 rpm heat transfer fluid pumps driven by 600 or 800 hp motors—high speed, high tolerances. I made my vertical and horizontal corrections leaving the heads in one position and brought the system into alignment. Then I actually removed and remounted the heads just to double-check because I did not believe I could do it in one move. The next job was a boiler feed-water pump system at a power plant. Again, when I repeated the alignment the results were the same. This made a believer out of me!

The S-680* is not only easy-to-use, it’s extremely accurate. Other things we like are that it uses a rugged tablet PC with Bluetooth capability. If you break a screen or have a problem with the tablet, you don’t have to buy a whole new system. The easy-to-use Couple6 software guides you through alignments. Sticklers for accuracy, Hamar designed the S-680* with hardware and software features that ensure the highest accuracy in all ambient lighting conditions.

Alignment is a key factor in a good reliability program and Hamar’s S-680* helps us generate a quick return-on-investment for our customers. When we start a program, we often see customers experiencing repeat part failures from misalignment. After alignment, failure rates go down dramatically. Power costs go down, too, because misaligned machinery draws more current. This is a kind of “double jeopardy” because that extra current not only costs more but tears up the equipment. So the S-680* saves money by reducing failure rates and related downtime expenses, as well as lowering power costs and extending equipment life. Accurate laser alignment truly pays for itself very quickly and helps us keep customers happy!

[For information on Hamar Laser’s shaft alignment products, visit shaftalignment.hamarlaser.com.]

S-680: Best Shaft System Ever!

I have been a field vibration analyst with Condition Monitoring Services since 2013. CMS is a reliability resource company that provides full-service Predictive Maintenance support. In my more than 15 years in the field, I have seen and used lots of alignment equipment. The S-680* from Hamar Laser is the best shaft alignment system I have ever used, and I have used it to align everything from extremely small pumps to large pumps for power plants, as well as in mills and mines.

There’s a lot I like about Hamar’s S-680* compared to other systems: First, you can leave the heads in one position and make the vertical and horizontal moves, a big time-saving feature. It’s extremely accurate, transmits alignment data wirelessly using Bluetooth and has a very intuitive, easy-to-use software package [Couple6]. It incorporates ambient lighting correction and has a sun filter that’s great for outdoor jobs. I can pop the filter on and not have any issues with light sources interfering with accuracy. That filter has saved me a lot of grief! Also, it uses a PC tablet instead of a dedicated display so if you have a problem with the tablet you don’t need a whole new system.

The S-680* makes us shine as reliability pros. Our new customers are often experiencing high failure rates due to misaligned equipment, but they see those go down significantly after starting a PM program with us. For example, a gypsum plant in Las Vegas was seeing continual failures on their mills, often due to losing bearings, even on the larger 300 hp units. They used to call us for alignments after failures two times per quarter. After we began aligning their equipment and getting it set up properly, that fell to two calls per year―roughly a 75%-reduction.

Another good example: A gold mine in Laughlin, Nevada had been running a very small, high-speed pump that was essential for their processing operation. The unit had a coupling failure about once every three to five weeks. After we corrected a number of issues with the pump and got it aligned properly, the last coupler has been running well for 18 months.

Compared to other companies, the service behind the product is superior. Hamar Laser’s customer support people are always extremely helpful with any operator issues, and their field sales reps are very supportive. We’ve been very happy with Hamar Laser and the S-680*!

[For information on Hamar Laser’s shaft alignment products, visit shaftalignment.hamarlaser.com/.]

Crusher Motor Alignment Made Simple!

We have used the system now, and it really is good. We used it on an old (circa 1950) crusher motor (200 hp 550 RPM) with a horrible motor base. It helped us get through the massive soft foot issues reasonably quickly, and the alignment was a breeze once we were done with that. The controls were simple and intuitive, and the touch screen made data entry very quick. The constant updates while we moved the motor made the adjustments very easy. The Bluetooth was also very convenient. It was something we initially thought wasn’t necessary, but with large motors it was very nice to be able to walk around with the PDA. It had very good range too. We finished with the motor aligned within very tight tolerances. Overall, I am very happy with the system. I was able to pick it up, and align a motor accurately the first time, with very little training and no previous alignment experience. Thank you for making such an easy to use and accurate system.

Remarkably Dependable & Accurate Motor Alignment

The machine move stage is the most critical step in any alignment. Behind its great graphics, this is where we have seen the very high resolution and accuracy of the system pay real dividends, because the live move data on a Stealth* system has proven to be dependable and accurate like never before. I have been very impressed to be able to align a new motor to close tolerances on several occasions with only one alignment measurement, one combined vertical and horizontal live-move correction and a confirmation retest – job done!