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Gage 2000 Helps Machine Shop Move Forward With Reverse Engineering

Article courtesy of Brown & Sharpe

Machine Specialties Inc. in Ashland, Virginia, developed its reputation for precision machining by producing close tolerance replacement components such as gears and shafts for production machinery used in the area's tobacco industry.

A few years ago, the company expanded its market by adapting the same machining techniques to components for the bottling and baking industries. "Those industries often purchase production machinery made overseas and sometimes had difficulty in getting replacement parts quickly," said Machine Specialties' Hunter Freed. "We saw an opportunity to sell our machining expertise to those industries, making replacement parts."

Freed added that often these manufacturers need to make adjustments to production machines, changing a gear ratio or modifying the shape of a mold, for example. "Having a precision machining facility nearby that can turn work around quickly gives them the confidence to be able to do this," he said.

Since its founding in 1983, Machine Specialties has offered high technology CNC and conventional milling and turning, and cylindrical and surface grinding capabilities, and more recently, water jet machining. To complement its machining capability, the company added a new Brown & Sharpe GAGE 2000 R Measurement Station.

Making Reverse Engineering More Efficient

GAGE 2000 R provides Machine Specialties with not only a shop floor measuring and inspection station, but a powerful reverse engineering tool as well.

While Machine Specialties is no stranger to precision measurement and inspection-the company uses a range of standard manual measuring instruments including calipers and micrometers, plus a Brown & Sharpe MICRO-HITE MPC Measuring System and other electronic height gages-the GAGE 2000 is the first system of its kind the company has used.

"We purchased the GAGE 2000 primarily for its scanning capability," Freed said. "Many of the parts we manufacture have no drawings or CAD files with them. We have to reverse engineer them and the GAGE 2000 R gives us an inexpensive scanning capability."

GAGE 2000 R is designed to be used as a height gage, calipers, dial indicator, or full-featured coordinate measuring machine. Its flexibility is what makes it attractive to shops such as Machine Specialties. It also offers hard probe scanning in all modes. During scanning, GAGE 2000 R's software uses a unique "speedometer" that graphically indicates the quality of the measurement data being collected. This speed-sensitive guidance system allows the operator to modify measuring technique to assure accurate data collection.

On the main software menu is a selection labeled "Digitize." This mode is used in reverse engineering applications to gather XYZ ball center points and send them to a collection point via the serial port to be converted into either DXF or IGES format for easy assimilation into a CAD system.

At Machine Specialties, data collected during the reverse engineering operation will be transferred in DXF format to the company's Omax 2652 Water Jet Machining Center where the data is used to create machining paths.

"The GAGE 2000 will let us create DXF files more quickly and efficiently than we could if someone manually measured all of the critical dimensions of a part, then created a part drawing which we would turn into a DXF file," Freed said. "We're being asked more frequently for just-in-time delivery, and the GAGE 2000 R will help us meet these critical deadlines."

The Omax 2652 Water Jet Machining Center creates intricately shaped components for a variety of mechanical applications. Reverse engineering data from the GAGE 2000 R is used to create machining paths.

Maximizing The Investment

While the GAGE 2000 was purchased primarily for reverse engineering applications, Freed said it will work its way into other applications as well at Machine Specialties.

In one particular instance, gear boxes machined by the company were slated to bypass normal acceptance testing by the customer. Machine Specialties was asked to provide certification that all the dimensions on the part drawing were within specifications.

"...the GAGE 2000 R will help us meet these critical deadlines."

The results of the measurements collected by the GAGE 2000 were sent to a printer via the system's parallel port. Results can be printed in text format, graphically, or both. At the completion of the part inspection, the part drawing on the screen can also be printed with the digitized outline of the part. All features are numbered and correlate to the numeric identifiers of the results printed earlier, making clear what features were inspected.

Part programs can be stored on PCMCIA "Smart Cards" making it easy to use the system for repetitive inspection tasks such as the gear boxes. To create a program, the operator measures the part and selects "Save Part Program". Playback displays the part feature drawing, highlights the appropriate feature and displays the feature type to prompt the operator to measure. All instructions such as tolerancing, statistics data capture, and printing are included in the program. At the end of the program the operator is prompted to measure another part or exit the program. PCMCIA cards can be transferred freely between Gage 2000 R Measurement Stations.

Expanding Usefulness

GAGE 2000 R addresses what is most difficult about traditional measuring machines-alignment, quick measurement, and learning time. The software eliminates the need for menus because complex mathematical algorithms "know" real-time what type of feature is being measured. The software automatically returns all of the results to the operator and offers a logical list of options of what to do with the data. For example, after measuring a circle, the options to set an origin or print the results are displayed. The software also learns operator habits. If the operator sends data to statistics, the statistics icon will automatically highlight after the next measurement, further reducing keystrokes.

Because of its simple operation, plans call for the GAGE 2000 to be integrated more fully into machining operations at Machine Specialties, from first piece inspection to tool setup.

"We plan to make the fullest use of the benefits GAGE 2000 offers to a shop like ours," Freed said.