When Laser Scanning's managing director Johnathan Rigby started the company in September 2016, he brought the original machine with him from his previous employer, PMS Diecasting in Rotherham. This firm now subcontracts much of its metrology requirement to Laser Scanning, both businesses being members of the Glide Group, along with plastic injection moulding specialist Loadhog, toolmaker GoTools, and wire joining and tensioning product manufacturer Gripple.
As the company’s name implies, most data acquisition is by laser scanning on both of the LK CMMs, as well as on two articulated arms supplied by Nikon Metrology. All of the equipment is housed in a temperature-controlled room held at 20 ±1°C in the Chapeltown facility. Parts delivered for inspection are acclimatised in the same room for 24 hours to reduce measurement uncertainty.
Three types of non-contact sensor from Nikon Metrology are in use on the CMMs: an XC65D cross scanner, and line-scanner models L100 and LC15Dx, which respectively have 13.0, 6.5 and 1.8 micron measuring accuracy. The provides performance equivalent to tactile probing, which is also utilised by Rigby and his team for capturing physical dimensions, such as hole diameters. A changing rack mounted on the CMM table allows automatic sensor exchange within an inspection cycle.
What prompted the purchase of the larger CMM was Rigby's receipt from Derby-based JCB Power Systems of a contract to assist with the quality control of cylinder blocks and heads for the engines that power the OEM's off-road vehicles. JCB has its own LK machine equipped with a touch probe that serves the production line in Derby. Laser Scanning assists by providing measurement and inspection of goods-in to the plant, where it has a QC engineer permanently stationed.
Additionally, the Chapeltown facility helps out with preparing CMM programs and proving them out, as well as inspecting prototypes to support JCB's R&D department. Especially for the latter purpose, the company is able to furnish far more comprehensive and accurate information about a new component than is possible using touch probing techniques at JCB Power Systems.
Although the engine plant does have laser-scanning capability on an articulated arm, the level of detail that can be acquired is less, as its scanning resolution is 23 micron, much lower than the best CMM-mounted scanner in use at Laser Scanning. In any case, inspection using an arm would be a manual process and almost impossible to replicate on subsequent occasions, whereas running a program on a CMM is automated and highly repeatable.
Rigby says: "By working with JCB's inspection department and R&D team we’ve been able to free up our customer's machine to concentrate on production QC. They also appreciate the greater detail we’re able to provide for new prototypes, as laser scanning allows us to show them the form of a component, as well as supply measurement data.
"For example, they recently asked us to help them with a new rocker cover housing that had been injection moulded, to determine whether the gasket area was within tolerance after shrinkage in the manufacturing process,” he continues. "Inspecting a planar surface such as the gasket area by touch probing at multiple points would not give an overall idea of its flatness and, in all probability, if the exercise were repeated, the results would be different. In contrast, scanning generates millions of points to give a detailed 3D picture of the entire surface to a very high level of precision, and the deviations can be quantified. It enables JCB to show its mould-tool supplier the exact location of any inaccuracies."
Laser Scanning Ltd is well placed to help any manufacturer that uses LK measuring machines and software, as work and programs can be transferred seamlessly to run on either CMM. Recent projects have included: a tier-two aerospace supplier in the Midlands used Laser Scanning's subcontract services for inspecting components while its own machine was out of action; and a medical equipment manufacturer that wanted to verify its in-house QC capability. Operator holiday cover is another regular source of business.
About half of Laser Scanning's turnover is derived from the reverse engineering of legacy components for which models and drawings do not exist. Machine shops and toolmakers are frequent customers, and the company also provides a service to designers. A recent job entailed taking sketches for the frame of a new downhill mountain bike developed by Stewart Palmer, director of Formula One subcontractor North Bucks Machining, and creating a 3D CAD model so that the frame elements could be produced on one of its machining centres. The contract machinist is also an LK CMM user.
The latest version of LK CAMIO software, version 8.5, is in use at Laser Scanning Ltd. Featuring interoperability across CMM platforms and sensor technologies, CAMIO is designed to create efficient inspection programs for measuring geometrical features and evaluating surfaces using point cloud analysis, with part-to-CAD comparison and full reporting capability.
Rigby says: "CAMIO software has a Microsoft Office feel to it, with a similar, customisable icon ribbon at the top of the screen. It’s very user-friendly, as programming functions are easily accessible and not buried within drop-down menus. The new version interfaces with our Geomagic software from 3D Systems, allowing us to create accurate models from 3D scan data, as well as use it for QC and measurement.
"We regard our association with LK and Nikon as two-way partnerships, whereby they provide us with all the support we need, and we offer feedback to the OEMs to assist in their development of next-generations products,” he concludes.
