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The
company’s plant manager said, “Working with a CMM is a very
time-consuming process and there is always the potential for errors.
The biggest problem is that the CMM measures points one by one,
which is often fine for inspection but means that it still takes a lot of
time to reverse engineer a complicated component, especially one with a
lot of 3D contours,” he said. “While
a CMM machine can determine the probe’s position with a very high degree
of accuracy, it’s very difficult to put the probe in exactly the right
position for a measurement. In some cases, parts have small cavities that
the probe won’t fit into and many automotive trim components are
flexible which makes it easy to bend them out of shape.”
Laser
scanners collect thousands of points every second at a higher level of
accuracy than is impossible with contact touch probe methods.
As the scanner sweeps the laser line automatically over the surface
of the part, a dedicated interface card translates the video image of the
line into 3D coordinates. This
process creates a 3D coordinate point cloud file that more accurately
represents the original part in much less time.
“I have done many projects
with GKS Inspection Services and have been extremely impressed with the unique
combination of high accuracy, short turnaround times, and reasonable
pricing that they deliver,” said the plant manager. “An important part of our success
is GKS’ willingness to work with us to make sure we get what
we need out of every job,” he said.
“They consistently provide a surface model based on millions of
points generated in a laser scan that accurately duplicates every contour
of the part. The models are so good that we can turn them directly over to
our CNC programmers without any touch-up.
Several times they have even sent their people with a portable
scanner over to a local automobile dealer to measure a new model the
minute it hit the streets.”
Laser
scanning helps us increase quality and get jobs through our shop
faster,” he said. “The
bottom is line is that our customer gets to market ahead of their
competition with a product that exceeds their own customers’
expectations.“
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