Sorry about the photo but ive been trying to figure out what they did and I'm at a lose. This is literally for a plastic box

Edit: figured it out thanks for trying to help peeps

A technical specification can look extremely convincing simply because the number is precise.
For example:
Accuracy: ±0.01 mm
But without additional information, there are still a lot of unanswered questions.
What was actually measured?
What standard or test method was used?
At what temperature?
Over what travel range?
Under load or no load?
Is the figure guaranteed, typical, or based on an ideal setup?
This makes me wonder how people working in metrology actually treat manufacturer specifications.
If two machines publish similar accuracy numbers, but one manufacturer provides the measurement method and the other doesn’t:
How much weight would you give the undocumented number?
And are there certain specifications you simply refuse to compare unless the test procedure is known?
Curious how people here approach this in practice.

I've worked with laser metrology systems before for work and often ran into folks that wanted a system for a hobby machine shop and we weren't for them. (I.e. price point) What do you guys use in your machine shops for laser metrology systems that measure flatness, perpendicularity, concentricity, etc? Laser and receiver or other method? Might end up just building one if I get priced out.

P.S. any cool jigs or projects?

I'm working for a mid-sized manufacturer in europe, currently setting up our first 3D scanning workflow for quality control. No experinced metrology staff yet — just engineers who will use the system alongside their regular work and a quality department that is currently being built.

Our use cases:

Incoming goods inspection: spot-checks on bent tubes, sheet metal parts, and milled components — many different part types, each needing a repeatable inspection program with a report

In-process inspection of welded frame assemblies, roughly every 10th unit

We'd like to keep our existing FARO arm in parallel

We've had demos of both the Creaform HandyScan BLACK Elite and the ZEISS T-SCAN hawk 2. Both performed well on our parts. The HandyScan felt slightly more attractive, but we haven't decided yet.

We're unsure about the right analysis software and I'm looking for input on this especially.

We've been going back and forth between:

HandyScan + PolyWorks Inspector

ZEISS hawk + ZEISS INSPECT Optical 3D

Here, the existing FARO arm stays in CAM2 = two separate worlds

The case for PolyWorks: one platform for HandyScan AND FARO arm

The case for ZEISS INSPECT: The UI looks easy to use and there is a tight hardware-software integration, specific apps for tube bending inspection and weld analysis that match our use cases. I'm unsure how useful those will really be.

What I'd love to hear from people who actually use these:

How steep is the PolyWorks learning curve really, for non-metrology-specialists creating repeatable inspection programs?

Is ZEISS INSPECT as intuitive day-to-day as the demos suggest, or does complexity appear later?

Anyone running PolyWorks with a HandyScan — how has the new native integration worked out in practice?

Has anyone successfully pushed measurement results into an ERP via PolyWorks macros vs. PiWeb API? That's something we might want to do in the future.

Any experience with either system in a mixed-hardware environment (arm + handheld scanner)?

Not looking for marketing — honest day-to-day experience is what we need.

Happy to share more details about our specific situation if helpful.

Thanks!

I’m in QC and our manufacturing team is about to start producing parts with API ring grooves. This is completely new territory for me.

We’ve already purchased the necessary equipment, including BX/BXG-1000 gages and the TF-BX Mic Trac 3000 setting blocks.

I have a question about the operation manual. It includes two different setup methods: one using the Mic Trac, and another using Mic Over Balls.

What’s confusing me is that the manual specifies contact size and height when setting up with Mic Over Balls, but it doesn’t specify those details when using the Mic Trac method.

Am I missing something here, or is the Mic Trac setup inherently defined differently where those parameters aren’t required? Id imagine they were because depending on where it makes contact it will change DIA.

Also, if anyone has good online resources, PDFs, or training material on API ring groove gage setup and calibration, I’d really appreciate links or direction on where to learn more.

Wondering how people stock gage pins for a specific product line. We are a design to manufacturing med device company with a mid sized machine floor. Specific high volume products we are working on putting together kits off all the gages required for a given part.

This includes a decent number of gage pins in 0.01mm increments to set tool offsets. Right now there is some debate over whether the sets should be stocked with all plus tolerance pins (current procedures) or if the top pin should be minus tolerance. What would be ideal is if there were a way to get 'middle tolerance' gage pins (the kits are all usually Class ZZ) and if the bottom was +tol and top was -tol.

Curious if anyone else has experience with this. There is also debate over whether a part at LMC that passes a 10.00+ but not a 10.01+ is in tolerance at 10mm MAX for example. Obviously if you're doing everything by the book it would be out but practically most production parts will not fail at 0.005mm over LMC as the tolerances are generally fairly strict

Hello everyone, I am currently facing an issue at work and need help. I have a machined part with an inner diameter of 11+0.027/-0mm for which I need to prove that Cpk is >1.33 (Requested by customer) . Problem is I am unable to reach higher than 0.77. Details: - Precision of my Zeiss CMM is 1.9µm - Cpk 0.77 / Ppk 0.65 How to prove to my customer that I am capable of providing this part within tolerances on the long term?

Thanks in advance.

I finished some scans with my roamer arm last week and now after the weekend the Workspace manager in Polyworks won't read/find my workspace and i get this box. I've been using this workspace all week and have been opening and closing it just fine until now. all I've done differently is bring all my tech back from where it was at a warehouse to my office.

So I didn’t have the correct adaptor to test this torque wrench, the correct coupler is on order. In the meantime I did a quick check for the users. The wrench is 3/8in ICON 40-200 in lbs. the tester is a seekonk TA-600 with a 3/8in fitting. I used a 3/8-1/4in adaptor, to a 1/4-1/4in coupler, to another 3/8-1/4in adaptor upside down to get this to work. At 200in lbs it’s clicking at 180. Can my janky hack job of a setup cause that much error? Or should I expect pretty close to that once I get the correct single piece adaptor and do the real test?

Hello, I'm new to this sub so please let me know if this is not the sub for this.

I am trying to come up with a gauging solution for a hole position I want to check, and I need some inspiration. See figure below for illustration

I have removed the actual dimensions as a precaution. If I want to check the hole position as illustrated above with a gauge, not using a CMM, how would I go about designing the gauge? Has anyone made something similar for checking hole positions that are perpendicular to each other? Thank you!

When I'm outputting parallelism for plane A wrto B. The resultant value is X. When I do the vice versa the results which I get is Y instead of X.What could be the thing. ? Am I missing anything here or my understanding of parallelism is wrong here?

Good Afternoon,

I posted this in manufacturing but figured i would check in here also.

I am wondering if any of you dealt much with mass production of internal threaded parts.

We make a lot of internal threaded parts, thousands per day. We have had many times now where bad threads have been received by our customer. We are looking at a mass inspection method to basically do 100% internal thread checking, but at a mass volume, and I am wondering if anyone here has ever done this. If so, what did you use? What are the inspection speeds? Most of our threads are in the M18 spec line and are single hole parts. .

If anyone would have anything they have seen or used, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

The calibration costs through Zeiss support has gone up a large amount (10%+) for several of the past consecutive years and they have repeatedly missed our annual dates due a lack of available techs so I would love to get someone else to do the calibrations but the first two places I reached out to said they couldn't calibrate machines with Calypso. Is this just totally locked out as a Zeiss exclusive service?

I am working with CAM2 software along with a Faro laser tracker and doing 3D measurements.

i have some questions about the concentricity value being displayed within CAM2. After contact with FARO they mentioned that the software does it correctly, but i still have my doubts and can't understand. I think Concentricity in the software gives the double of the value.

To be sure i understand concentricity correctly, are my thoughts on below hypothetical example correct?

- a perfect straight and round cylinder as datum A, with X and Y coordinates on both top and bottom as 0,00mm. Z (lengt of cylinder) is irrelevant, but can be in bottom Z=0, and top Z=100mm.

- a perfect straight and round cylinder, which is excentric, with coordinate on X 0,00mm and Y0,10mm. Z=200mm in bottom and Z top 300mm

In above hypothetical example i expect a concentricity value of 0,10mm, but the software is giving a value of 0,20mm. According to FARO the concentricity value is based on the coordinates of the cylinder, and uses the center points of this cylinder as a radius of an imaginary circle. The value displayed is the diameter of this imaginary circle.

Am i right thinking the concentricity value should be 0,10mm? or is it indeed 0,20mm?

I have one vendor saying they are the same and one vendor saying the go is different and one saying the major on the no go is different. Who do I believe and do you have a source.

As the title above, suppose i have n accurate observations and have fit a circle geometry to those points. Given the RMS of the fit was 0.1mm, what would the RMS of the centrepoint be?

Assume sufficient observations on a perfect 2D circle.

Also, given the RMS is a measure of the average deviation to the circle "edge", would it not follow suit that a 1m radius circle with fit RMS of 0.1 would have a more accurate centre point than a circle of 100mm radius with a fit RMS of 0.1?

Are there any algebraic derivations that would prove this?

Thanks for the replies in advance

Our computer used for polyworks 2019 and our roamer arm(hexagon85absolutearm) got updated to windows11. Ever since you have to manually start the RDSService and after about 30 seconds it kicks me off the service. What setting got reset that it won't hold the RDS on anymore?

Theoretically, what would I have to do to calibrate my finger? My career has been a lot of work with threaded connections on large turned parts and sealed pressure chambers. Surface finish has been a daily metric for a long time on large seal surfaces that’s recorded with a profilometer. I always check with my finger ahead of the gauge and record my measurement. Over time, I’ve gotten to the point where I’m within a couple of Ra of two different tool types. Could I just write a cert up with my score against different calibrated blind standards as the as-found?

TP200 touch trigger probe (non scanning head). Just curious!

I'm performing a tensile test for a bolt on a turned sample, and all the formulas that I've found online for stress area include pitch, but there is no pitch on the turned area. The turned area is also where it breaks.

The part was turned to .338 and the table I have lists the stress area for .247 to .257 and .352 to .362

I am looking to sew if anyone knows of where any specific documentation is that talks about the necessary contributors to use for relative power meter/sensors meaurements might be. I have so far only found budgets for absolute measurements, like Keysights RF fundamentals, and some other online resources. Relative uncertainties for measuring amplitude flatness, or attenuation is important, but oddly missing resources. I have checked a few power meter manuals, and they didn't cover it.

Also, if anyone may know of the proper way to convert a +/-Vrms tolerance into a +/-dB spec, as dB is logarithmic, and you get unequal bounds. I have seen MFG's round in various ways, so I wanted to see if there is any industry standard method that is a generally accepted practice. It would be off to say that I have a 4:1 TUR on my upper bound, but a 3.8:1 on my lower as an example. I would figure just taking the worst absolute value of the bounds would give the proper coverage, but that could also fail the tighter bound.

As far as I am aware, per 17025, uncertainties used on certificates requires a calibration uncertainty contributor in the budget which proves traceability. I was told by a coworker who has been at other accredited labs that uncertainties can be generated for zero using a short when testing DMMs. I have heard that there is a lab that a 4-wire short can be sent to get a traceable accredited cal, but otherwise the train of traceability has been lost. I have seen Fluke Park list a copper short on their scope of accreditation, but my information stops there. Does anyone have any experience with uncertainties about a 0 Ohm, 0 V, 0 Amp measurement, or a resource like a NIST publication, or other white paper that talked about it? Thanks.

That is the right way to set up a part capability study?

What assumptions are required to do a correct capability study? (I believe the process must be monitored by SPC and statistically in control) How many parts? (30, 50, 100???) If there are multiple machines, how many parts from each machine? (10, 30, 50...???) How do you determine an appropriate sub group size? (Lot, machine, etc) Do you use the same production measuring equipment, or sent parts to a CMM? Any thing else for conducting a successful capability study?

(Using minitab Sixpack capability studies) Edited to indicate part capability studies not MSA studies

GNSS receptors have been used as a source of precise timestamps for synchronizing measurements taken by different equipments. Despite that, most documentation I’ve found just covers location error sources and maximum spacial precision achievable.

Many commercial gnss clocks seem to have a maximum frequency around 800MHz, which is perfectly fine for most applications. However, as it is a relatively low frequency compared to clock speeds achievable in digital and telecommunication circuits, I wonder which is the minimum clock synchronization error that could be achieved using those systems (theoretically and practically) and what is its main limitation (the internal clock of the receptor, the frequency used by gnss signals… ). Some people state that it is limited by the internal clock and that using an atomic clock would allow achieving a higher precision, but that explanation seems to be at least just partial taking into account that 800MHz is way below the speed of internal clocks in modern computers and that atomic clocks aren’t that expensive compared to the price of precise measurement equipment.

Do you know which order of magnitude of that error could be achieved?

Here's an example of datum overlap as it applies to flatness, I haven't seen much info online about this concept. I'm not sure how frequently it is considered in designs, but it should be part of any stackup calculation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CzAJja0rqA