Air Bearing Benefits: Greater Precision

Air bearings provide extreme radial and axial rotational precision. Since there is no mechanical contact, wear is minimal, ensuring accuracy remains constant over time.

Air bearing spindles, by their manufacturing construction, are inherently accurate in rotation. Special manufacturing techniques enhance this accuracy to give extreme rotational and axial precision. Air bearing spindles have been designed to achieve rotational accuracy of less than 0.1 microns TIR in both axial and radial directions. As there is no mechanical contact between the rotating shaft and the static support, there is nothing to wear out, ensuring the accuracy remains constant over time – an important feature for manufacturers using statistical process control.

Typical synchronous radial runout values: < 10 microns (PCB drilling spindle, high speed).

Typical asynchronous radial runout values: < 0.025 microns (Disk test spindle, low speed).