Air bearing spindles from Precitech are manufactured on-site. The shafts are ground using an extremely precise CNC grinding system, which allows us to grind the shaft OD and the thrust journal faces in one step.
This guarantees a high degree of squareness and parallelism, eliminating the possibility of once per revolution errors.
Precitech’s ultra precision spindles use a bronze journal and a hardened stainless steel (440 series) shaft. The use of dissimilar materials means that, in the unlikely event of the spindle rotating without air, no damage is caused to the spindle.
The spindles are capable of operating at near-ambient pressure levels of 85 PSI, which means specialized air compressors are not needed. If required, the spindle design also facilitates the use of liquid cooling.