Gage Combines Production, Programmable Measurement

The Equator gaging system from Renishaw is designed for high-speed comparative gaging in the inspection of high-volume manufactured parts. It can quickly switch between parts, making it well-suited for flexible manufacturing processes and accepting parts from multiple machines. the company says.

Based on a scaleable and adaptable “parallel kinematic” structure, the gage enables high-speed scanning and rapid moves between features while retaining stiffness for point-to-point repeatability. It can be quickly reconfigured to accommodate part-design changes and to measure new parts, the company says.

The system is available with two levels of software: Programmable software enables production engineers to create DMIS programs, and a less-expensive, shopfloor system enables program execution, but prevents operators from making modifications.

The gage technology is based on the traditional comparison of production parts to a reference master part. Remastering compensates for changes in thermal conditions on the shop floor, enabling the gage to be used in factories with wide temperature variation.

Unlike a traditional gage, master parts do not need to be expensive or customized, the company says. A production part measured on a coordinate measuring machine (CMM) can establish feature variation from CAD or drawing nominals. The results can be configured to be used directly with the gage software.