Tactile or contact probes are the most common metrology technique in the coordinate measurement world, including the more specialized gear measurement community. Tactile probes can be active or passive, scanning or touch only, and may vary in cost and performance depending on the system itself. They are offered by multiple industrial companies as standalone OEM products (e.g., Renishaw) or only included in their coordinate measuring machines (e.g., Zeiss, Klingelnberg, and Hexagon). Their overall performance, especially their robustness and flexibility, have led to a gold standard for most metrology tasks.
Digital Metrology Solutions, provider of measurement software, consulting, and training, has introduced TraceBoss+ (TraceBoss Plus) software, integrating surface texture and crosshatch measurement in a single package.
Mitutoyo America Corporation has released the RTX Roundtracer Extreme all-in-one measuring system that integrates roundness, contour and surface roughness measurement functions on a single platform to save time and improve productivity.
Gear inspection has long been a highly specialized costly investment and an overall challenging part of the gear manufacturing process. Given that complicated gages, testers, and CNC equipment all go into creating high quality gears, companies may want to invest in a CMM to streamline inspection.
New GRSL technology adds value to high-volume transmission gear inspection by combining non-contact laser inspection with tried-and-true composite roll testing.
More than any other field, IIoT overlaps directly with metrology's mission to analyze and measure as much of the manufacturing process as possible, and it's no surprise that the latter is utilizing the former.
Revolutionary new inspection technologies are helping gear manufacturers develop and produce more complex, higher quality gears in a fraction of the time it used to take.