Multi-axis optical CMM released in North America

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Apr 18, 2007

NVision's Maxos is based on proven technology developed for the measurement of turbine blades in a shop floor environment.

NVision has released Maxos, a multi-axis optical CMM, to the North American market.

Existing clients maintain that it is the fastest CMM in the world.

"The Maxos provides a significantly faster way to measure high-value precision components in an automatic production environment", said Steve Kersen, President of NVision.

"Our customers in North America now have access to a technology that until recently was only available in Europe and Asia".

The Maxos has already sold widely to companies such as Siemens, the Wood Group and Alstom Power for high-speed production inspection applications.

It is based on proven technology developed for the measurement of turbine blades in a shop floor environment.

In production measurement benchmarks the Maxos has proven itself to have the output of four to six of the fastest conventional touch probe CMM machines and on challenging applications such as the full inspection of machined aerospace blisks at Centrax in the UK, inspection times have been cut by 97%.

The keys to the performance advantage are to be found in two places; the optical, noncontact probe and the multi-axis operation.

The Maxos has its own noncontact probe.

It is a point of white light that allows the collection of individual points at a rate of 70 per second.

Like a touch probe CMM it collects individual points but unlike a conventional CMM it continues on its path at high speed and without pausing.

Noncontact scanners are not new but the difference between the Maxos sensor and others is that it can scan freshly machined surfaces, highly polished surfaces and even mirrors without any need for them to be sprayed with a coating.

It is this need for spraying that has been the Achilles heel of every optical scanner before it when challenged with scanning highly polished surfaces such as turbine blades and in clean environments such as those for aerospace and medical applications.

The Maxos uses the conventional three axes of a CMM with two additional axes on its sensor along with two optional turntables resulting in up to seven axes in total.

All of these axes can be controlled to ensure smooth and fast movement around all of the points to be measured even on difficult to measure horizontal geometry and blade platforms.

Because the Maxos measures with a single white light point, the entire cause of inaccuracy and approximation inherent in 3D measurement with a ball probe is eliminated.

Consequently, the Maxos has an exceptionally high accuracy of +/- 2um on matt surfaces and +/- 10um on polished metal.

It can achieve a point spacing resolution of 0.2um without pausing.

Additionally, since it has no ball probe and measures a single point at a time it is not limited by ball-offset geometry and can inspect radii of less than 0.2mm; key to the measurement of leading and trailing edges on turbine blades.

The Maxos will create its own alignment for the measurement of a part based on an alignment file, after which it will typically measure cross sections and features against pre-determined geometry.

Consistent with a production environment Maxos will provide a complete inspection report at the end of its measuring routine without delay, enabling instant feedback for process control.

According to Giles Gaskell, Director of Business Development at NVision, "Customers typically see productivity improvements well in excess of 400% compared with the fastest touch probe CMM".

"Anyone needing to improve throughput in their inspection process needs to take a look at what the Maxos has to offer before they buy another CMM".