The challenge of repeatable assembly is a recurring theme throughout many engineering scenarios. Typical kinematic mounts can only support relatively light loads, but a Spherolinder-based mount can handle loads 100 larger than a standard mount - more than 5 tons when using 1" mating components!

By using a Spherolinder-based mount, customers are able to achieve any of the following:

• Reduced maintenance times (Customers)
  Equipment that requires disassembly for maintenance often requires re-calibration when it is brought back online, causing expensive down-time following the maintenance operation. Using Spherolinder technology, the customer is able to eliminate recalibration and complete the maintenance cycle faster, resulting in large savings.
  Examples:
  Semiconductor inspection equipment: Consisting of thousands of contacts and electronics circuits, modern inspection heads can weigh more than a ton, yet have to contact extremely fine pitch pad fields. Semiconductor fab down times are extremely expensive and a Spherolinder mounted inspection head can be up an running much faster than one requiring re-calibration.
  Beam lines and end-stations: Particle accelerators and storage rings use precisely aligned magnets to shape and control their beams. Repositioning these components is a time consuming task that a can be eliminated by using Spherolinder mounts. End stations are where the experiments are placed, and being able to switch experiments in and out while maintaining the alignment increases the number of experiments you can run.
  

• Reduced installation costs (Vendors)
  Equipment that requires disassembly for transportation often requires re-alignment at the installation site, often by a trained field crew. Using Spherolinder technology, the vendor is able to perform the calibration at the plant and retain it across transportation and re-assembly, reducing the size of the assembly crew (or eliminating it altogether!), and resulting in large savings.

• Production lines (Manufacturers)
  Using Spherolinder technology, ton-scale components can be machined by consecutive machining centers, with features matching down to the 1 µm level, simplifying the individual fabrication stations and increasing the efficiency of the production line. In addition, using Spherolinder technology, fabrication and assembly machinery can be removed from the line and subsequently returned to service without requiring re-alignment, thus reducing production line down-time.

• Co-machining (Manufacturers)
  In order to reduce fabrication costs and still maintain precise matching of parts (as in the case, for example, of engine blocks) machining operations can be carried out on an assembly, which subsequently has to be taken apart for further fabrication and then put together again. A high load capacity kinematic mount is essential for such a process.

• Heavy instrumentation (Science, Semiconductor)
  Optical instruments are often very sensitive to deformations in their structure. Kinematic mounts virtually eliminate mounting-induced stresses, resulting in more predictable operation.

• Dynamic loads (Aerospace, Military)
  Keeping sub-systems on an airframe or a ground vehicle aligned while allowing for rapid turn around increases the uptime of the platforms, resulting in reduced cost and added capabilities.

For applications requiring repeatability under difficult load conditions, or where other constrains require the use of less-than-optimal materials or geometries, the Spherolinder^® can make the difference between meeting your engineering requirements and compromising your design.