The OEM's Guide to Advancing Life Science & Biomedical Equipment with Linear Motion — Part 3: Handle with Care

This series of articles highlights how next-generation linear motion systems can be specified, designed, installed, and maintained to advance life science and biomedical capital equipment manufacturing.

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Handle with Care

Risks can arise once a linear motion component destined for a specific life science or biomedical application arrives on the capital equipment maker's floor.

Linear motion manufacturers may be called to solve many problems at this intermediate stage. A linear motor may suffer a binding problem, where the coil traveling inside the motor track is rubbing against the track in its travel. A handling issue might cause this due to jarring that slightly shifts the coil or the track out of alignment. Or the saddle — the moving stage segment — may get bumped and suffer distortion. In building the larger tool, screws that are too long may be added, pushing through one linear motion plate into another, causing scratches and the risk of unpredictable forces during operation. Or a coil may be unscrewed from its mounting to allow access to run an additional cable, then re-screwed incorrectly.

Mishaps like these run risks ranging from slightly degrading performance to burnt-out motors and major downtime events. Surface preparation also merits close attention. Tolerances must match in all particulars. In some cases, a manufacturer building tools for these processes may source a linear motion component constructed for flatness of travel of, say, 0.0005 inches (12.7 microns). But the toolmaker then bolts that component down to a larger assembly with a flatness of only 0.005 inches (127 microns). The consequent twisting of the stage may be almost imperceptible. For example, this may cause binding of the bearings resulting in premature wearing of the bearings, additional forces on the ball screw, or higher power requirements from linear motors resulting in excessive overheating and potential failure.

Get Grounded

Ensuring that all components in the linear motion system have proper electrical grounding is another precaution OEMs can undertake to prevent a future problem. Such an oversight might result in electrical shock risks for operators. But it can also have an impact on system performance.

A ground loop in the system that feeds back through the ground path could induce false readings in the encoder so that a component only travels 1 millimeter, but the controller registers travel of 100 millimeters. If such an oversight is missed, for example, positional accuracy may result in errors in the readings of the instruments leading to inaccurate analysis.

Next: Ensure Efficient Integration

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