Measuring new parts fresh off the production line has always been an interruption to the overall manufacturing process.
Each time, someone needs to run down to the quality lab before full-scale production could begin. But what if engineers could measure parts on the production floor using robots and measurement software?
ENGINEERING.com recently spoke with Daniel Smith, regional manager at FARO Technologies. The video above and the Q&A below document interview highlights.
Jim Anderton (JA): Dan, we’re looking at a quality tool here, which looks deceptively simple. Tell me what it does?
Daniel Smith (DS): This is [the FARO Edge ScanArm HD], an articulating seven-axis portable coordinate measuring machine. It has the ability to allow the operator to take measurements out on the shop room floor.
Manufacturers are used to having to take these measurements, take their parts, interrupt the process and bring it back to a quality lab. What this allows the operator to do is essentially take the quality lab right out of the process.
If we’re comparing to a CAD model or if you just need to take measurements very quickly, instead of basic hand tools such as micrometers, calipers and height gauges, all of those are wrapped up into one tool.
The other really nice benefit is that it’s shop room hardened. This [robot] is made to withstand any type of temperature change. There are thermistors inside the arm that take real time measurements of the ambient temperature and compensate for it.
Simplicity is one of the core features of the FARO arm. Taking measurements, you have a green button and a red button here that will actually digitize points. You can either do that with a hard probe or a noncontact laser scanning head. Whether you want to take single point measurements very quickly or you want to take 50,000 points or more per second, you can do that noncontact with the scanning head.
Our CAM2 Measure 10 software is an inspection and reverse engineering software that can be utilized with the FARO arm. This system here has software also on the actual system itself so you don’t need to be tethered to a laptop if you don’t want to. If you wanted to take measurements like hand tools and you can take basic measurements like planes, lines, points, cylinders, hole-to-hole measurements – all of that can be done right here on the actual arm itself.
JA: In the dark ages, the way manufacturing operated was that the first off the machine would have to be run off to the quality lab. If they approved it, you could send someone to run down to the press shop to start production again. There was no high-repeatability measuring going on in the shop floor because the environment is brutal. How can you use this in an environment like a machine shop or punch press environment?
DS: [Manufacturers were] really limited towards that. You pretty much had to stop production, take it to the CMM room, take your measurements, write a program out – it was very time consuming, interrupting the entire process and the flow.
With the way that the FARO arm is built, it can constantly monitor what that environment is doing. Often we’ll do a demonstration where we might be next to a bay door that opens up with incoming and outgoing parts. In the beautiful Midwest climate we have temperatures that change very rapidly, so the arm compensates for that on the fly. It constantly reads what the ambient temperature is and moves for the coefficient for expansion and contraction within the arm and adapts.
JA: What’s the typical profile of an end user of this equipment? Would they be small shops or large manufacturers?
DS: We go with such a wide spectrum of users. They can be someone who’s operated a CMM for 20-plus years and has extensive knowledge and programming, or it could be someone who only knows how to use a tape measure.
It’s pretty amazing, the vast array of customers and operators that use this and that’s why we have different levels of software. Even with those programs you might have someone in the engineering department write that program, and send that down to the arm. Then, with about five minutes of minimal training you can have somebody follow along like a karaoke machine as it takes the measurements step by step.
For more information on FARO Technologies’ robotic solutions, visit their website here.