November 2010 Industry News
Okuma America Corporation is pleased to announce that Exsys-Eppinger, a supplier of fixed and rotary tool holders, has joined Partners in THINC.
Exsys-Eppinger specializes in developing state-of–the–art solutions to manufacturing problems and has numerous patented applications in the metal working industry. The Exsys innovative design approaches have aided customers in reducing manufacturing cycles and tool inventories, enabling them to be more competitive and more profitable.
“By being a member of Partners in THINC, we can offer our talents in many ways to further enhance the machining capabilities of Okuma’s turning equipment. Our intimate knowledge of machine tools and engineering knowhow span many years of developing new tool holders to improve manufacturing methods as well as improving capabilities not before thought of on turning centers. EXSYS/EPPINGER tooling is known for its superior quality and total customer support during and after the sale and therefore fits well into the mission of Partners in THINC”, stated Jill Young, North American Sales Manager.
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Partners in Thinc
Ideal for Products Using Coated/Treated Pins or Plungers, Such as Diesel Injectors, Cartridge Valves, Piston Pumps, etc..
Sunnen's new match honing system creates a custom final bore size to match the diameter requirements for each mating male component that is measured on the machine prior to the honing cycle.
Sunnen's new match honing process produces bore specifications to match the measured size of individual pins, plungers or pistons that may have dimensional inconsistencies due to special plating, coating or other treatment. Match honing is an ideal technology for achieving ultra-precise fit between mating parts of fuel injectors, piston pumps, cartridge valves and similar products that use coatings or other treatments on male component parts that make it impossible to achieve consistent diameter size. The process eliminates or reduces work-in-process inventories required when parts must be sorted by class size prior to assembly in order to achieve a precision fit. According to Sunnen, depending on the application, total tolerances between mating parts can be controlled to within ±1 micron with match honing.
The SV-1015 honing system uses integrated air gaging for closed-loop control of finished bore size to "match" the size of each male component that is measured on the machine immediately prior to the honing cycle. Using Sunnen's super abrasive MMT tool, the air-gage-equipped machine can automatically control hole size to accuracies of 0.1µm (0.000010") without operator intervention, working in a size range of 3 65 mm (0.120-2.56") diameter. The air gaging system controls bore dimensions and geometry by taking post-process measurements of the part bore immediately after each spindle, then adjusting the tool size in the next spindle.
The SV-1015 can also be equipped with Sunnen's optional new multi-feed technology, which gives honing process users a revolutionary choice of tool-feed modes to achieve the shortest cycle times, lowest part cost, and longest abrasive life. Multi-feed combines Sunnen's new controlled-force tool feed with its standard controlled-rate tool-feed system. Controlled-force works like cruise control to ensure the optimum cutting load on the honing abrasive throughout a cycle. It cuts cycle times by as much as 50 percent, lengthens abrasive life for lower consumable cost, and allows finer control of surface finish parameters than ever before possible. The standard controlled-rate feed system for tool wear compensation is capable of adjusting tool size in increments as fine as 0.1 µm (0.000010"). Controlled-rate tool feeding is required for use with plated-diamond CGT honing tools, which use a sleeve of abrasive for full contact with the bore surface. CGT tools are frequently used on cast iron and powder metal workpieces, or parts with segmented bores or multiple lands, ports, keyways or crossholes in the bore. Sunnen's machine control provides up to five feed expansion profiles that can be used during a cycle for rapid part touch, cutting, sizing, finishing and spark-out.
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Sunnen
The NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California was originally founded to do wind-tunnel research. However, it has since expanded its role to doing research and technology in aeronautics, spaceflight, and information technology. Now with the help of a commercial robot arm, the Adept Viper 850, and NASA’s 3D scanning technology, the engineers at the center’s 3D vision lab have created a large area robot scanner. This new robotic high-speed 3D scanner was developed to demonstrate the capability of inspecting an entire assembled CEV heat shield (5 meters in diameter), and its individual components. The 3D scanner technology was originally developed for the hand-held Mold Impression Laser Tool (MILT) to inspect space shuttle tiles, and be used on planetary rovers to aid navigation.
The large heat shield samples are hemisphere shaped and used on NASA Spacecraft for protection on re-entry into the atmosphere. The engineers have put a patented NASA laser scanner on the six axis robot arm. The new robotic scanner uses NASA’s 3D scanning software technology to scan the shields as the robot moves across the surface. As it scans it is developing a 3D model of the shield from laser surface reflections. The proof of concept project uses the 3D model information to look for cracks, faults or holes and to see if the shield is the correct shape. Using the Adept Viper robot allows the engineers to automatically scan larger areas more efficiently than attempting to scan the shields by hand or with 3D scanners with limited area coverage.
The laser scanner uses laser triangulation to measure the 3D locations at different points as it is scanning. While it scans it sends the 3D information over to a control computer. The scanner also sends a digital pulse to the robot every 3rd scan frame at 214 Hz. The robot uses the latching functionality with Adept’s V+ programming language in combination with the digital pulses from the scanner to store positions corresponding to every 3rd scanner frame. The control computer matches the stored positions from the robot with the scanner frames and interpolates between missing positions to create the 3D image of the shield.
The scanning software has the capability to automatically find and measure holes on the surface using image processing on the 3D image. Hand-held MILT scanners are useful to measure holes in smaller tiles like those used on space shuttle tiles, but a robot is more effective & efficient for a large heat shield. The scan information for large heat shields is used to create a large 3D model. Similar technology could be used on other large surfaces such as an airplane if the robot was big enough.
The exceptional speed and resolution of the robotic Ames high-speed 3D scanner enables the engineers to scan an entire heat shield at high resolution in a couple of hours rather than days. Software for controlling the robot, displaying and patching 3D scans in real time, zooming into and measuring defect dimensions, and providing “recession” and other kinds of analysis have been developed or adapted from the MILT project.
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NASA
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