High-Speed Gaging of Precision Machined Parts

Renishaw says its Equator is a low-cost option for high-speed, comparative-gaging inspection of manufactured parts developed and proven on the shop floor in collaboration with industry-leading companies in the automotive, aerospace and medical sectors.

Based on an easily scalable and adaptable “parallel kinematic” structure, Equator's principle enables high-speed scanning and rapid moves between features, while retaining stiffness that delivers point to point repeatability, critical for accurate gaging, the company says. 

Installation of Equator is said to take minutes, and operators can switch between gaging of different parts in seconds. Reconfiguration of the gaging system to accommodate part design changes or to measure new parts can be faster than what would be needed using conventional custom gaging and at a lower cost than using a coordinate measuring machine (CMM).

Equator systems are available with two levels of software, a programmable version for production engineers to create DMIS programs and a shopfloor system which enables those programs to be executed without operator modifications. The company’s MODUS Equator programming software is said to enable engineers to rapidly create gaging routines for any part be it simple or complex, prismatic or free-form.