Niton up to Universal task. (Installations).

A combination of large stationary XRT-800 and hand-held XD800 alloy analyzers from Niton Corp., Billerica, Mass., is now on the job at Universal Metal Corp., Worcester, Mass.

The analyzers have been purchased by the scrap specialty metals company to replace units lost in a September 2001 fire and to supplement its analyzing capabilities.

Universal foremen like Jimmy Vincent are accustomed to using old stationary machines made by Kevex, but the company no longer produces the models preferred by Universal. After listening to what Universal required in its stationary analyzers, Niton Corp. designed its XRT-800 model to withstand the high-production environment.

"This is a good production unit," says Vincent. "If you're setting up a barrel with 1,000 pieces, you can run that in a day with the Niton XRT-800. With some of the other machines on the market, it could take you three or four days."

A key difference, according to Vincent and Universal Metal Corp. chemist Albert Gagnon, is the display capability of the XRT-800. "We need to see 16 or 17 elements on each sample we read," says Gagnon. "Some models only show 10 or 12, so you then have to hit another button or even go into another mode to finish the analysis."

Universal has also been impressed with the "reproducibility" of the Nitons they own. That is, when the same sample is submitted 10 or 15 times as a test, the analysis displayed is identical each time. "There are some alloys that are very close (in chemistry)," notes Gagnon. "With some machines we tested, some of them identified a particular alloy slightly differently.

"Niton was a good company to deal with," says Gagnon. "They've been very receptive to what our needs are in regard to these machines."