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RPI celebrates 80 years at Control 2020

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RPI Ltd will be celebrating 80 years of specialising in rotary measurement at the forthcoming Control 2020 exhibition. To mark its anniversary, the company will be launching TruMotion, a manual-spin rotary table designed to inspect circular components such as gauges, bearings, aero-engine components and optical assemblies in a shop-floor environment, while maintaining accuracies more commonly seen in the standards laboratory.

The QuadProfile horizontal axis will also be debuting at this year’s show. Designed as an additional rotary axis for CMMs, this device delivers high-speed measurement of smaller parts such as inner engine blades and gears.

Jim Palmer, RPI’s sales manager, says: “We’re delighted to be celebrating our 80th birthday at Control 2020. As a German-owned company, we couldn’t have picked a more perfect venue for the party. We grew out of a number of acquisitions, including Eimeldingen, which was based in Baden-Württemberg. The world has changed a lot since the 1940s, but our passion to design and manufacture dependable, low-maintenance products, with a service life measured in decades, remains as true today as it was 80 years ago.”

RPI will also use the show to demonstrate GeoInspec, a manual-spin, air-bearing rotary table for optimal circular geometry inspection. In addition, automated data collection hardware used with both TruMotion and GeoInspec will be on display.

Other products on show will include QuadSlimLine rotary table for inspecting component parts such as gas turbine discs and fan blades on CMMs. Specifically designed as a fourth axis, the tables are accurate to 2 arc-seconds.

Meanwhile, visitors to RPI’s stand can see the LabStandard and LabStandardAIR high rotary tables. Typically used for calibration of inclination sensors and navigation systems such as gyroscopes, enabling both horizontal and vertical application, these tables offer sub-arc-second angular accuracy and precision geometry for inspection and calibration labs, with the versatility of both single and dual axis, making them accurate to ±0.5 arc-seconds. This accuracy is equivalent to hitting a golf ball at a hole more than 22 km away and scoring a hole in one every time.

The LabStandardAIR has been designed as a contact-free system and eliminates features which may detract from achieving the optimum rotational performance. The rotating elements are supported on high-precision, air-lubricated hydrostatic bearings and are not subject to the disturbances associated with gear drives.

RPI will be present on Stand 7108 in Hall 7 at Control 2020 in Stuttgart (5-8 May).