Air Bearing Performance Without Air Bearings!

BURLINGTON, MA, June 13, 2008 - Steinmeyer announced an innovative, cost effective decoupling arrangement for ball screw drives that enables our standard PMT 160 series stages to achieve breakthrough performance - namely straightness and flatness runout of 50 nanometers or less! And we do it using mechanical cross roller bearings instead of large and expensive air bearings. The decoupling system isolates any transverse movement of the ball screw from the linear bearing system and saddle of the stage.

Even though the linear bearings in Steinmeyer's precision stages are dramatically oversized, their stiffness is not infinite. Disturbance forces can elastically deform base plate, bearing and saddle and interfere in the straightness and flatness of the whole stage system. By applying flexure designs well known in piezo micropositioning stages, Steinmeyer developed a solution that virtually eliminates these effects!

The technology of decoupling devices is standard in all ball screw driven PMT 160 series stages from Steinmeyer. The PMT 160 offers travels from 50 mm to 300 mm, with standard positioning accuracy of less than 10 μm and repeatability of ±0.5 μm when driven by either dc servomotor (with rotary encoder) or dc stepper motor. Higher accuracies are possible through the use of linear encoders. The PMT series stages can be customized for vacuum and/or cleanroom operations as well. Production proven in thousands of units, they are ideal for applications in semiconductor, inspection, micromachining and other areas where high precision is critical to the application.

The Steinmeyer group is comprised of two manufacturing divisions located in Germany. August Steinmeyer GmbH & Co. KG (located in Albstadt) has been setting standards for high precision ball screws for over 40 years and prides itself on high quality, innovative designs to meet demanding customer requirements. Our Feinmess Dresden (FMD) division has been producing an extensive line of high precision positioning systems for well over 130 years.