Published 10/10/2018

October 2018 Product Spotlight: Measurement and Inspection

This month’s Modern Equipment Review Spotlight focuses on various inspection and measuring machines and equipment, much of it on display at IMTS 2018.

Jedd Cole

Former Production Editor, Modern Machine Shop

Beta LaserMike’s Z-Mike Pro, from NDC Technologies, is an offline part measurement system for metrology applications. It has sleek, modern styling and is designed for Industry 4.0, with expanded connectivity, communication and control capabilities. The gage provides ±0.5-μm accuracy and ±0.13-μm repeatability for dimensional measurements of outer diameter, ovality, taper, total indicator reading (TIR), runout and effective cutting diameter. It offers versatility for measurement applications such as rubber rollers, fluted cutting tools, plug- and pin-gage calibration, shafts, pistons, crankshafts, camshafts, motor shafts, glass tubes, fuel injectors, valves, computer components and other applications. Read More.

Alicona’s µCMM 3D focus-variation measuring instrument is designed for high accuracy in tight tolerances. Through a combination of tactile coordinate technology and optical surface metrology, the instrument measures dimensions, position, shape and roughness of components with one sensor. The instrument is capable of measuring small surface details including precise determination of position, through several optical 3D measurements in relation to each other, the company says. Read More.

DWFritz’s Advanced Metrology Platform combines an advanced machine vision system, custom software and robotics for inline and near-line manufacturing applications. Five 21-megapixel monochrome and color cameras can be combined with lasers to capture difficult measurements. The lasers can be configured to gather 3D data, and stitch together a dense point cloud of the surface area of the part for inspection. Application-specific lighting is said to promote high throughput. Read More.

The Zeiss Rotos roughness sensor enables coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) to inspect surface waviness and roughness, even on complex workpieces, in a single measurement run without any reclamping. This ability speeds up the measurement of all surface parameters. The sensor enables the user to check the size, form, location tolerances and roughness parameters on a single machine. With the sensor, the Prismo and CenterMax CMMs eliminate the need to use separate stylus instruments to capture significant form deviations. Read More.

Creaform has launched the Cube-R, a turnkey automated dimensional inspection solution. The optical 3D measuring machine combines MetraScan 3D-R scanning technology with the efficiency and reliability of robotization in an automated industrial measuring cell. The machine extends the 3D digitizing and inspection capabilities of the MetraScan 3D for the dimensional measurement of parts ranging from 1 to 3 m with metrology-grade volumetric accuracy in shopfloor conditions. Read More.