Calibration equipment plays a critical role in ensuring the accuracy and reliability of various tools and devices used across a multitude of industries. From manufacturing and aerospace to healthcare and scientific research, precise measurements are often crucial for safety, quality control, and regulatory compliance.
Calibration equipment allows us to verify and adjust these measurements, ensuring that instruments are operating within their specified parameters. Inaccuracies, even small ones, can lead to significant errors over time, potentially compromising product quality, safety and even leading to costly downtime or regulatory fines.
With regular instrument calibration, businesses can maintain high levels of accuracy and reliability in their operations, leading to improved quality, increased efficiency, and greater trust from customers and regulators alike. At Warren Knight, we offer several types of calibration equipment as well as NIST-traceable instrument calibration services. Here’s a look at what we can provide.
Our Calibration Equipment
There are many types of calibration instruments, such as process calibrators and temperature calibrators. However, at Warren Knight, we focus mainly on optical alignment equipment, including collimators and alignment telescopes. Let’s take a quick look at these pieces of equipment in general.
Alignment Telescopes
An alignment telescope, also known as a line scope, is a precision optical instrument that is used to establish and test straight lines, both horizontally and vertically, in industrial settings. It’s often used for the alignment of machinery and equipment during the installation process, as well as for ongoing maintenance checks.
This crucial piece of alignment equipment works by creating a precise line of sight along which other components or systems can be aligned. It generally consists of a high-quality, highly stable telescope mounted on a precision machined base. The telescope usually includes a reticle (a grid or pattern in the eyepiece) to assist with precise alignment.
Industries such as aerospace, defense and manufacturing, among others, use alignment telescopes for a variety of applications. For instance, they are used in the alignment of aircraft fuselages during assembly, in the setup of machine tools to ensure accurate production, in aligning parts of large structures like bridges, and even in scientific research settings, such as aligning components of particle accelerators.
At Warren Knight, we produce several different alignment telescopes. For instance, the WK-51-100 alignment telescope is ideal for applications where a micrometer is not needed. The WK-51-2000 Spherical Alignment Telescope is another option to consider. This telescope has a line of sight for spherical alignment systems that meets AIA specifications without micrometers.
If you need the micrometer, our WK-51-2200 Spherical Micrometer Alignment Telescope might be a good fit. This versatile instrument includes two micrometers for precise measurements in two directions perpendicular to the line of site.
Collimators
A collimator produces a parallel, or nearly parallel, beam of light or other radiation. This can be used to calibrate optical devices to ensure they’re correctly aligned and able to produce accurate measurements or observations.
In the field of radiology, for example, a gamma camera used in nuclear medicine needs to be calibrated to ensure the accuracy of its imaging. A collimator is used in this process to direct the radioactive photons onto the detector surface in a controlled and predictable manner.
In another application, collimators are used in the calibration of surveying and alignment instruments like theodolites, transits, and levels to ensure the line of sight is properly focused and aligned.
Our WK-51-3000 Alignment Collimator is used to establish positions in reference to a line of sight as well as for checking and adjusting optical alignment instruments. We also produce an autocollimation eyepiece that converts most auto levels and theodolites to autocollimation instruments. This eyepiece is available in both diagonal and right-angle configurations.
NIST-Traceable Calibration Services
If you need calibration services for just about any type of optical or mechanical alignment equipment, the team at Warren Knight can help. We offer both NIST-traceable calibration and repair to MIL-STD-45662A and ANZI 540-3. In many cases, we can provide you with a 24-hour calibration turnaround.
Within our quality calibration services, we offer multiple certification classes to meet every need and/or budget. Our highest level is providing readings before and after calibration, but we also can provide you with readings after calibration is completed or simply provide you with basic certification without any readings.
If it turns out you need repairs, we can service just about any type of optical tool or instrument. Our calibration equipment and instrument repairs include the complete disassembly of the instrument as well as complete lubrication and cleaning of each component. Our repair lab is staffed with experienced, factory-certified technicians and all of our calibrations, repairs and certifications, are, of course, NIST-traceable.
In addition to our selection of calibration equipment, we also build quality leveling instruments, navigation instruments, metrology equipment, meteorological instruments and surveying equipment. This includes Abney levels, theodolites, clinometers, boresights and much more. Because we know it’s not always cost-effective to purchase equipment, you also can rent theodolites, precision levels, transits, total stations and much more from Warren Knight and we even offer a rental purchase plan.
If you don’t see precisely what you need, give us a call and let’s discuss creating a custom design. We’ve been creating precision instruments since 1908 and can provide you with just about any type of optical instrument or calibration equipment that you might need.