Understanding shop floor CMMs can be difficult for a user to understand, there are 2 parts to running a CMM on the shop floor.
In the environmental area, almost all CMMs address the ambient environment, the use of way covers, enclosed cabling and linear mechanical bearings or linear drives are used to handle contaminants that are airborne and can cause issues with the machine by affecting the life of the machine, but it does not address the key element in shop floor measurement which is temperature
Temperature, this is where most CMMs that are used on the shop floor come up short, many manufacturers approach this concern by using divergent materials in the machine construction to minimize the effect of temperature on the measurement data. Some units apply temperature compensation to the machine and the part and apply a linear mathematical formula based on the materials involved. A few actually control the ambient temperature of the machine through enclosures or by special system design
Ease of use in another large consideration for shop floor systems, the purpose of a shop floor machine is to move it out close to the work being performed, the software needs to be simple and uncomplicated. A shop floor machine is only effective if a machinist can be taught to use it in a short time and the software is intuitive, if the software requires extensive training (more than a few days) and is not supported by thing such a video training courses, it effectiveness is diminished and it may require that full tie CMM programmer be hired to handle integrating the shop floor machine into the processes used, thus limiting the ability to seamlessly integrate the product and increasing the time required to implement the product. It should also have a simple enough manual interface that machine operators can do one off inspections without having to write a program to obtain quick measurement information, thus eliminating waiting time on expensive machine tools
The Aberlink Xtreme address all of these areas being meeting all the criteria, from simple to use, environmentally protected, and having its own temperature control to insure measurement quality across a wide range of temperatures at a very attractive price
- Environment (which controls the integrity of the data)
a.)The Ambient Environment
b.)Ambient Temperature for machine and part - Ease of use
In the environmental area, almost all CMMs address the ambient environment, the use of way covers, enclosed cabling and linear mechanical bearings or linear drives are used to handle contaminants that are airborne and can cause issues with the machine by affecting the life of the machine, but it does not address the key element in shop floor measurement which is temperature
Temperature, this is where most CMMs that are used on the shop floor come up short, many manufacturers approach this concern by using divergent materials in the machine construction to minimize the effect of temperature on the measurement data. Some units apply temperature compensation to the machine and the part and apply a linear mathematical formula based on the materials involved. A few actually control the ambient temperature of the machine through enclosures or by special system design
Ease of use in another large consideration for shop floor systems, the purpose of a shop floor machine is to move it out close to the work being performed, the software needs to be simple and uncomplicated. A shop floor machine is only effective if a machinist can be taught to use it in a short time and the software is intuitive, if the software requires extensive training (more than a few days) and is not supported by thing such a video training courses, it effectiveness is diminished and it may require that full tie CMM programmer be hired to handle integrating the shop floor machine into the processes used, thus limiting the ability to seamlessly integrate the product and increasing the time required to implement the product. It should also have a simple enough manual interface that machine operators can do one off inspections without having to write a program to obtain quick measurement information, thus eliminating waiting time on expensive machine tools
The Aberlink Xtreme address all of these areas being meeting all the criteria, from simple to use, environmentally protected, and having its own temperature control to insure measurement quality across a wide range of temperatures at a very attractive price
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