Retrofit Bearings

Download the Retrofitting with Air Bearings infographic

New Way^® Porous Media™ Air Bearings aren’t just an option for brand new machines, but also represent immense potential for retrofitting older machines, and even servicing machines with bearings that simply can’t be procured anymore. New Way has a long history of leveraging our in-house engineering and turnkey manufacturing to provide original equipment manufacturer (OEMs) and rebuilders with porous media air bearings in drop-in configurations, custom builds, and even matching the specifications on competitor’s products, if desired.

A History of Rebuilding

For years now, New Way Air Bearings has provided compatible air bearings for Sheffield Checkmate Coordinate Measuring (CMM) machines, not only increasing their lifespan but also providing boosts to accuracy as well. For Sheffield CMMs, now under the ownership of Hexagon, our bearings can simply be dropped into the machine with minimal modification.

Our experience with retrofitting and servicing Sheffield bearings is so extensive, we’ve cross-referenced Sheffield CMM’s part numbers and can readily provide you with the make, model, and quantity of our porous media products needed for a complete rebuild of the system.

This service has also been provided to Cannon for their semiconductor lithography steppers, allowing them imaging resolution below 0.35 microns. New Way has an extensive history of working with CMM and system rebuilders to meet their exacting needs. Just a few of the clients we’ve worked with are:

Exacting Standards and Custom Engineering

The process of retrofitting air bearings dovetails neatly with our in-house engineering expertise and custom product design capability. Our bearings can be retrofitted into any applicable system with matching constraints and axes of motion. And, we fully understand no two systems are alike.

Every new retrofit and service product receives our undivided attention, and our engineering team will evaluate the system in question to ensure the upgrade process is seamless, matching your old bearing’s tolerances, and even competing brands of orifice air bearings.

Applications

There’s virtually no limit to which types of our air-bearing catalog can be retrofitted into an old machine, and so applications are only limited by your imagination. Below, are just a few examples of the industries which have benefited, and stand to benefit from retrofitting their systems with porous media air bearings.