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.