Delcam's PowerINSPECT Gives Inspection Confidence
Having recently secured a large new contract with one of its existing customers Skar Precision Mouldings Ltd needed to upgrade its inspection facilities. The company purchased a FARO PowerGage with Delcam's PowerINSPECT software.
Skar Precision Mouldings Ltd, based in Hadleigh, Suffolk specializes in the manufacture of high quality thermoplastic injection mouldings. Its customer base embraces a wide range of products, including medical instruments, display products, parts for televisions and lighting, pumps and air movement systems, and precision mouldings for various instruments and engineering applications.
The FARO PowerGage is a brand new product that utilizes Delcam PowerINSPECT software to allow the user to inspect prototypes, tooling or parts against CAD models. The combination of hardware and software allows portable inspection of complex curved surfaces, as well as measurement of features such as hole positions, diameters, flatness, etc.
The PowerINSPECT software incorporates a "Play Only" element. This allows remote programming of the system, with the file then being utilized by the inspection department or on shop floor. It ensures that the end-user must follow a pre-determined sequence of events to inspect the part and produce an electronic report for the customer.
Patrick Hill, Quality Manager at Skar Precision Mouldings commented, "The FARO PowerGage will be an invaluable asset to our business. We can now confidently inspect the most complicated parts we have, and give the customer a complete comparison of the part against the CAD model. We can inspect complex curvature and more basic geometric features with the same tool. The portability of the PowerGage, together with the flexibility of the software, provides us with a reliable inspection solution for all of our products."
The FARO PowerGAGE, which resembles a short, metallic arm, is a high-tech, yet user-friendly manufacturing inspection device. Instead of taking the part to an expensive fixed CMM in a climate-controlled room, users can mount the PowerGAGE directly to where the part is being made. As the user traces the arm's tip over the part's entire surface, the system's laptop computer verifies all of the part's 3-D measurements against the original CAD file – the digital "blueprint" – to see if it was made correctly and, if not, where it needs to be corrected, thus reducing scrap, re-work and labor costs.
SOURCE: Delcam