BTI – Rebuilds & Retrofits

No matter the brand, BTI will rebuild or refurbish your existing equipment to like-new condition.

Balance Technology has been building machines since 1968, and a great many of them are still in production. The mechanical structure of a well-built balancing machine, gage or test stand — the base, the bearings, the spindle, the ways — will outlast several generations of the electronics and software that control it. Rebuilding that machine rather than replacing it is often the better engineering decision and almost always the better capital decision.

When the machine is one we built, we have the original design behind it: the assembly drawings, the electrical schematics, the software, the calibration records and the build history. That changes what a rebuild can be. We are not reverse engineering your machine. We are returning to a design we know and bringing it current.

Why Machines Get Rebuilt

The controls are obsolete before the iron is. An industrial PC from fifteen years ago runs an operating system no one will patch, on hardware no one stocks. The spindle it commands may be in excellent condition. This is the single most common reason a machine comes back to us.

The part changed. A new program, a different family, a tighter tolerance or a higher rate. Frequently the existing machine can hold it with new tooling, revised software and a correction station upgrade.

Accuracy has drifted. Wear in bearings, belts, drives and tooling accumulates. Repeatability degrades slowly enough that nobody notices until a customer does.

Safety and compliance standards moved. Guarding, interlocks, light curtains, lockout provisions and electrical standards have all tightened since many machines were built. A plant audit is often what starts the conversation.

Data requirements appeared. A machine that was specified to print a label is now expected to write a record per serial number into a plant quality system.

The plant is moving. Machines get relocated between facilities, and a relocation is the natural moment to bring a machine current and recertify it in its new home.

Common Upgrades

• New industrial computer and current operating system
• PLC replacement and reprogramming
• Motor and servo replacement
• Repair and replacement of wear items
• Replacement guarding to current standards
• New proximity sensors, cabling, plumbing and pneumatics
• Added automation, including robots and dedicated transfers
• Process and feature additions — new measurements, new stations, new correction methods
• Plant location compliance and certification
• Cleaning and paint
• Refurbished or replaced tooling

Where the need is only current computing and data handling, the project is often just a PC upgrade, which is a far smaller undertaking than a full rebuild.

What Having the Original Design Actually Buys You

We know what it was capable of when it left. The original acceptance data tells us what the machine achieved new. That is the benchmark a rebuild is measured against, rather than a guess about what a machine of that vintage ought to do.

We know which parts are wear items and which are structural. A rebuild scope built on the actual bill of materials spends money on the bearings, drives and tooling that degrade, and leaves alone the castings and weldments that do not.

We can source or make the parts. Where a component is obsolete, we have the drawing and can manufacture it or engineer a current equivalent into the same envelope.

We understand the measurement chain. When accuracy has drifted, knowing how the original measurement system was designed is the difference between diagnosing the cause and replacing components until the symptom goes away.

The upgrade path is real. Adding crack detection, dimensional gaging or surface measurement to an existing BTI balancer turns it into a combination machine, and we know from the drawings whether the base, the spindle and the envelope will carry it.

How a Rebuild Runs

Assessment. We start from the machine’s serial number and pull its build record. Then we look at the machine itself — on site, or here once it arrives — and establish its current condition against what it was built to do.

Scope. A written scope that separates what must be done to restore the machine from what you may want to do to improve it. Those are different budgets and often different decisions, and we would rather you see them separately.

Rebuild. Disassembly, inspection, repair or replacement, reassembly, rewire, new controls and software, and tooling refurbishment as scoped.

Runoff. The machine is run on your parts, against the acceptance criteria agreed in the scope, before it ships. Where the rebuild includes new capability, that capability is demonstrated on your parts too.

Installation and training. Reinstallation, recertification in place, and training for the people who will run and maintain it — who are frequently not the people who were there when it was new.

Rebuild or Replace

We build new machines, so we have an obvious interest here, and we try to be straight about it.

Rebuild usually wins when the base, spindle and structure are sound, the machine’s fundamental capacity still suits the part, and the problems are in controls, wear items, tooling or compliance. Most machines that come back to us are in that category.

Replacement usually wins when the part family has outgrown the machine’s capacity or speed range, when the required cycle time is beyond what the mechanical design can reach, when the structure itself is damaged or worn past economical repair, or when what you actually need is a different machine that happens to resemble the one you have.

The assessment tells us which. We will say so.

Frequently Asked Questions

How old is too old?
We have rebuilt machines from the 1970s. Age matters far less than condition and than whether the original capacity fits what you need now. Send us the serial number and we can start from the build record.

Do we have to ship the machine to you?
Not always. Control upgrades, software, tooling and some mechanical work can be done in your plant. Full rebuilds — particularly anything involving the spindle, the base or a rewire — are better done here, where the machine can be properly disassembled and run off.

Can you make it do something it never did?
Often. Adding measurement stations, correction methods, automation or data handling to an existing machine is routine work for us. Whether a particular addition fits depends on the machine’s structure and envelope, which is exactly what the assessment answers.

What if nobody here knows how the machine was originally set up?
That is normal and it is not a problem. The build record is ours, not yours. Give us the serial number.

What if we bought the machine used from someone else?
Still fine. If we built it, we have its record, regardless of how many owners it has had since.

What about machines built by other manufacturers?
We rebuild those too, though the process is different because we start without the original design. See competitor rebuilds and retrofits.