SHEET METAL
QUALITY & INSPECTION
Automated video measuring speeds inspection by a factor of 60
EDM subcontractor and toolmaker installs Nikon Metrology CNC video measuring to speed accreditation to AS9100 aerospace quality management standard
have in common with the first all- English wristwatch to be produced in half a century? UK subcontractor Microtec EDM, Basildon, supplied prototypes and components for both ventures, as well as for a host of other innovative and high profile projects. The company recently raised
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the capability of its metrology department significantly by purchasing a powerful CNC video measuring system, an iNEXIV VMA- 4540 from Nikon Metrology. Until the machine was installed
at the end of 2014, Microtec relied on manual video measuring using another make of instrument. Owner and managing director, Graham Cranfield advised, “We are currently seven years into an 18-year contract involving electro discharge machining (EDM) and centreless grinding of nickel-copper alloy tube to produce a decoy missile component.
“A complete inspection of
the part using our manual video measuring system used to take 20 minutes. Now that the job has been programmed on our new Nikon machine, the same inspection cycle is completed automatically in just 20 seconds. We find that time savings of this magnitude are typical and have revolutionised the productivity of our metrology department.” He explained that it took them
only a few hours to create the inspection cycle for this fairly complex job, based on a CAD model of the part. The process will become even shorter as company employees become more familiar with programming. For contracts that
34 IMT June 2015 hat does an
orbiting telescope currently mapping the Milky Way
Dawn Carter inspecting a spark eroded nickel-copper alloy component for a decoy missile on the Nikon Metrology iNEXIV VMA-4540 CNC video measuring system at Microtec.
frequently repeat, the automated measuring approach saves a lot of time in the long term. Even after measuring a dozen of the missile tubes, the programming time had been justified. The component is actually required in quantities of a few thousand every year and even though only one in 12 needs to be inspected, the saving in measuring time during 2015 alone will be more than double the programming time. By the same reasoning, prototypes and components needed in small batches are more productively inspected manually on the pre-existing video measuring machine, or indeed on the iNEXIV VMA-4540 operated in manual mode.
Wide range of component sizes Work carried out by Microtec for space missions includes making parts for the joint ESA / JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) BepiColombo mission to Mercury, which will set off in July 2016 on a seven and a half year journey to the smallest terrestrial planet in our solar system. Another project involves the manufacture of prototypes and components for an orbiting telescope. In both cases, the telescope parts are relatively large. Many other components that the Basildon subcontractor produces go down to 20 microns in size, however, placing the firm in very select group of such specialist providers of wire-cut EDM
www.internationalmetaltube.com
and spark-erosion services in the UK. A current project in the micro
area entails sparking 30-micron wide slots 3 mm deep into copper for Reaction Engines, Oxford, which is designing a multi-use, Mach 5 engine for launching satellites. A further project is the wire-erosion of 70-micron wide vanes in copper and molybdenum grids, required in quantities of 50 per year for an electron beam gun. Somewhere between these extremes in size lie the components Microtec machines for Charles Frodsham & Co, clockmaker to the British Royal family. In 2015, managing director Philip Whyte plans to launch the first all-English- made wristwatch to be produced on a production basis in half a
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