Equipment List

Professional Instruments Company is a privately owned family business founded in 1946. The owners are sons of the founder and have worked many years in all areas of the company’s operations.

We currently operate five plants: Four in Minneapolis, and one in Rochester, Minnesota. Our total manufacturing floor space is more than 100,000 square feet, all of which is of modern, fire-resistant, air-conditioned construction. The company is ready to handle substantial future growth and has no significant financial liabilities. We have a skilled group of craftsmen, many of whom came up through long-standing, company-operated training programs.

In addition to our company’s product line of air bearing spindles and slides, we do a wide range of sub-contract manufacturing including tools, gages, prototype parts, precision cams, special machines and production parts. We are actively working in the field of diamond machining. We make a strong effort to handle a wide variety of work which enables us to do jobs that many firms cannot handle without sub-contracting.

We regularly do business with IBM, Etec, SVG Lithography, Palomar, Corning, Applied Materials, Rosemount, Moore Tool, Nikon, Dover, Carl Zeiss, Cranfield Precision, Allergan Medical Optics, 3M, Timken, Seagate, and many others. We are certified vendors for several of these, and also have Confidential Disclosure Agreements to facilitate our working on important R&D projects. Our equipment includes the following:


CNC Machine Tools

6 - Bridgeport Accurite CNC mills.
1 - Bridgeport Series 1 CNC vertical milling machines.
1 - Haas Mini-Mill vertical machining center.
1 - Haas model SL-20 CNC turning lathe.
1 - Haas model TL-1 CNC toolroom lathe.
1 - Haas model TM-1 vertical machining center.
1 - Haas model VF2 machining center.
1 - Howa model MSN-P320-VCJ CNC vertical machining center with jig changer; 16-tool changer.
1 - Matsuura model 710-V CNC vertical machining center; 26”—14” capacity; 24-tool changer.
1 - Matsuura model 760V-2 CNC vertical machining center; 30”—16” capacity; 30-tool changer.
1 - Matsuura model MC-500V CNC vertical machining center; 20”—14” capacity; 20-tool changer.
1 - Miltronic ML-14 flatbed toolroom lathe.
3 - Mitsui 6”—18” CNC surface grinder.
1 - Mori Seiki SL-5 CNC turning center, 30 hp, programmable tailstock 12-station turret.
1 - Okamoto 12”—24” CNC cylindrical grinder.
2 - Okamoto 12”—40” CNC cylindrical grinder.
1 - Shizuoka model SV-4020 CNC vertical machining center with a Tsudakoma 10” diameter 4th axis; 18-tool changer.
1 - Toyoda GE3P-25M 8”—10” cylindrical grinder.
1 - Toyoda GE4P-40M 1220” cylindrical grinder.



CAD/CAM Software

5 - AutoCAD® design software.
4 - Easytalk® DNC software directly linked with CNC equipment.
1 - Mastercam® design/manufacturing software directly linked with CNC equipment. Able to use any customer CAD format for part generation.
2 - Solidworks® solid modeling software.


Special Machines

2 - Moore #3 base, equipped with a Milltronics CNC control.
2 - Moore #3 base, upgraded at Moore Tool with Fanuc 18-M series CNC, roller ways, linear scale feedback, 4 microinch minimum feed resolution.
1 - Moore #3 base, upgraded at Moore Tool with Fanuc 18i-M series CNC, roller ways, linear scale feedback, 4 microinch minimum feed resolution.
2 - Moore #3 base, upgraded at Moore Tool with Fanuc Powermate CNC, roller ways, linear scale feedback, 4 microinch minimum feed resolution.
10 - Moore #3 jig grinder bases with air bearing spindles for use on prototype diamond turning and grinding.
1 - Moore #4 jig borer base, specially modified for precision flycutting.
1 - Moore #4 jig borer base, specially modified for spherical grinding.
1 - Moore #5 jig borer base, specially modified for precision boring of air bearing journals.



Surface Grinders

1 - Blanchard #11 rotary surface grinder, 16” chuck, 15 hp.
45 - Surface grinders from 5”—10” to 32”—120”. One unit will grind 27” wide by 60” long. Fifteen are Okamoto 12”—24” Accugars. These machines are equipped and maintained to produce the most accurate surface grinding work obtainable. Seven are equipped with BLOCK-HEAD® air bearing wheelhead spindles. Manufacturers include Okamoto, Brown & Sharpe, Elb, Abrasive, Taft-Peirce, Thompson.



Cylindrical & Centerless Grinders

5 - Centerless grinding machines (three DedTrus and two Royal Masters).
30 - Cylindrical grinders to 14”—36”. Plain, universal and plunge-feed types. One has riser blocks for 26” swing. Many of these are equipped with air bearing headstocks and tailstocks for super-precise work. Manufacturers include Landis, Brown & Sharpe, and Myford.
4 - Ex-Cell-O center lapping machines.



Internal Grinders & Honing

18 - Internal grinders including a Heald 72A5 equipped to grind tapers in long parts supported with a steady rest, three Heald 273A toolroom-universal machines, and one Heald 171. Many are equipped with air bearing headstocks and wheelhead spindles.
1 - Springfield vertical internal grinder, 30” I.D. capacity.
9 - Sunnen honing machines with the area’s most complete stock of mandrels and stones (from .060” to 6.0”). Also a full complement of Sunnen external honing equipment.
7 - Sunnen precision bore gages.



Jig Borers - Jig Grinders

3 - Moore #3 jig grinders completely equipped with all accessories, including a slot grinder and several air bearing spin tables for work requiring millionth-inch roundness and flatness. All Moore spindles to 175,000 rpm, plus air bearing spindles to 60,000 rpm.
3 - Moore jig borers, with all accessories including a Moore master dividing head.
1 - SIP Hydroptic-6A 28”—40” jig borer with 37” of Z travel. Machine is fully tooled including all accessories.



Wheel Balancers

4 - Balantron electronic grinding wheel balancing units. These Swiss-made balancers balance the grinding wheel on the machine at operating speed. They greatly increase the quality of grinding work.



EDM Machines

1 - Current EDM hole drilling machine.
1 - Mitsubishi model DWC-90 CR.
2 - Mitsubishi model FX-10 submersible wire EDM machine.
1 - Uni-Tek Metal Disintegrator model 100-D.



Milling Machines

2 - #2 horizontal milling machines. One unit is a full universal with geared dividing head.
32 - Vertical milling machines (toolroom type) with every possible accessory. These range from small extra-sensitive high-speed units to large heavy-duty types. Two Bridgeports are permanently equipped with Advance cross-slide rotary tables. Others are permanently equipped with index heads, dividing heads, rotary tables, etc. to save setup time on short-run jobs.



Lathes

19 - Large precision lathes from 14”—48” to 19”—102”. One is a 15 hp Monarch 27”—72”; two are 10 hp Okuma 22”—60”; ten are 15” LeBlond dual-drive and Regal servo shift models. Our LeBlonds also include one 17” Regal and one 19” Regal. All are late-style, high-quality, superbly tooled machines.
29 - Small precision lathes including four Hardinge toolmaker’s lathes, three Hardinge chuckers and one Monarch chucker, five Hardinge hand-screw machines, plus a wide variety of high class engine lathes and hand-screw machines, extraordinarily well tooled.



General

15 - Arbor presses in a wide range of sizes and types.
3 - Buehler abrasive cut-off saws.
1 - Cincinnati planer.
42 - Drill presses from 14” to 36” capacity. Included are four Burgmasters and three six-spindle gang drills. Also three high-speed sensitive micro drill presses.
2 - Gorton engraving machines.
3 - High-precision shaft straightening presses.
4 - Horizontal band-cutoff saws.
7 - Hydraulic shop presses to 60 ton.
1 - Magnaflux magnetic particle inspection machine.
1 - Spartan PA-18PC horizontal bandsaw.
2 - Super Brown cold saws.
1 - Talyvel precision level (.1 arc second).
6 - Tool-and-cutter grinding machines plus an unusually wide selection of drill and end-mill sharpening equipment.
5 - Ultra-precise dynamic balancing machines equipped to handle a wide variety of small-to-medium sized balancing applications.
15 - Vertical band saws, distributed through our shops to avoid the need to change blades.
1 - Zyglo dye-penetrant crack-detection setups.


Inspection Equipment

1 - 18” Moore master step gage.
1 - 36” Rahn Planekator which enables us to calibrate our own surface plates.
10 - Cadillac Pla-Checks.
6 - Capacitance gages.
3 - Cleveland roundness testers.
12 - Electronic indicators (.000,005” resolution).
1 - Federal Formscan (.000,005” resolution).
1 - Federal Formscan 3300 circular geometry gage.
2 - Hewlett-Packard laser interferometers.
1 - Hilger & Watts 48”—4” grazing incidence interferometer.
2 - Johansson indicators reading in half-millionths.
2 - Johansson indicators reading in one-millionths.
50 - Johansson indicators reading in ten-millionths.
20 - Laboratory-accuracy surface plates. Various Sizes.
9 - Large sets of gage blocks.
2 - Leitz autocollimators.
1 - Leitz optical dividing and radius measuring engine.
1 - Leitz toolmaker’s microscope.
1 - Lion Precision spindle error analyzer.
1 - Mitutoyo B-231 coordinate measuring machine: Measuring capacity of 28”—24”—18”, .0001”(.002mm) resolution, Renishaw 6-way probe, plus full accessories.
1 - Mitutoyo Crysta C574 CNC coordinate measuring machine.
2 - Moore measuring machine.
8 - Optical comparators - including ST model 3700 with Quadracheck geometric readout and fiber optic edge sensing.
30 - Optical flats to 10” in diameter.
2 - Professional Instruments Company roundness checking systems.
1 - Pratt & Whitney 24” super micrometer.
3 - Ring gage calibrating instruments.
8 - Rockwell hardness testers (regular, superficial, and micro hardness).
2 - Squareness testers.
15 - Stereo microscopes.
10 - Sunnen bore gages with setting fixtures.
6 - Surface roughness indicators.
1 - Talysurf laboratory roughness measuring instrument.
1 - Tropel Flatmaster® flatness analysis system.
1 - Wild autocollimator.
1 - Wyler precision level (.2 arc second).

We also have a full complement of the more usual gaging equipment such as V-blocks, angle plates, height gages, bench centers, bore gages, indicating mikes, etc. We keep a card file on our inspection equipment, and record calibrations performed on each tool or gage. Frequently used items are calibrated on a regular schedule; infrequently used items are calibrated on an as-used basis. Gages which we are not equipped to calibrate are sent to an outside laboratory and certified. Our nine sets of gage blocks are calibrated on an annual basis and replaced as needed. We maintain and upgrade our equipment with complete facilities for machine way scraping and spindle rebuilding/retrofitting. Many of our machines have been retrofitted to provide machining capability to the finest possible geometric tolerances. Over 100 air bearing spindles are used as workheads, wheelheads, and inspection fixtures.



Clean Room

1 - 16”—16’Class 10000.



Precision Cams

We have facilities for designing and producing precision cams. Much of this work is done on equipment designed and built by our company. We are equipped to grind hardened cams having internal contours down to 1/8” radius. We are tooled to produce master cams to the most exacting tolerances.



Heat Treating

We have accumulated a great deal of experience in heat treating. We have several tempering ovens and an electric heat treating furnace. We are thoroughly experienced in heat treating complex parts by means of induction, gas and liquid carburizing, vacuum processing, and other methods. We do a great deal of work requiring deep-freeze stabilization. With the close assistance of an outstanding consulting metallurgist and our own fully equipped laboratory, we are able to solve very difficult problems through the use of the area’s many heat treating job shops.



Precision Lapping

Our precision lapping department includes five flat-lapping machines, two centerless laps, and a wide variety of specially built spherical lapping machines.



Deburring Facilities

We have extensive deburring facilities, including a Harperizer, several vibratory and barrel finishers, many buffing and brush machines; a variety of belt and disk sanders, three vapor blasters, three glass-bead blasters, six ultrasonic cleaners, many parts washers, a hot-air parts dryer, ten collet-type speed lathes, and every possible accessory to enable us to produce burr-free parts for any requirement.



Sheet Metal

We have a wide variety of sheet-metal fabricating equipment intended primarily for fabrication of small quantities of model-shop parts. Included are six shears, three press brakes, two rolls, four gas welding outfits, three arc welders (including one Miller Heliarc and one Miller Wire Feed), three spot welders, several benders, a turret punch, etc.



Spray Painting

Our well-equipped spray painting department includes an electrically heated baking oven, a Nordson electrostatic-heated-airless spray unit, as well as a full selection of conventional spray guns, power sanding and sandblasting equipment.



Experience

We work in almost every material. The company is long experienced in ceramics, carbides, hardcoatings and plated coatings, plastics, light and heavy metals, and just about every machinable substance.

It is worth noting that we have manufactured steel master balls used as roundness standards, and that the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) in Washington, D.C. has a 2” ball we supplied them which is spherical to one-quarter millionth inch. Moore Tool of Bridgeport, Connecticut, uses one of our master balls as their roundness standard.

We have received Minnesota’s highest safety award, the “Award of Honor”, 20 times. This is given to only six companies each year.

Professional Instruments has a great deal to offer your company in several fields of precise tooling and manufacturing. Gages, fixtures, special machines, prototypes, precision parts production, cams and diamond machining are some possibilities, as are many types of equipment utilizing the company’s numerous years of experience in designing ultra-precise air bearing spindles and slides.

We would be pleased to quote your requirements and assure you that we will make every effort to produce superior tools, parts or products, on time, and at competitive prices.

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