INTEGRATED COORDINATE MEASURING SYSTEMS

A recent addition to our product line is a selection of fully integrated, easy to use, low cost, Coordinate Measuring Machines. We offer both CMM arms and laser trackers to precisely measure and locate payloads of all sizes.

Take full advantage of your instrument accuracy - Space Electronics manufactures the world's most accurate mass properties measurement equipment. In order to take full advantage of our extraordinary accuracy, you must have the ability to accurately translate the measured results to your test part's datum. In the past, this was accomplished with careful and often expensive fixturing techniques. Now, you can use our CMM arm or laser tracker to remove fixturing inaccuracies by directly determining the location of the test part relative to the measureing machine.

Reduce fixture cost - An integrated CMM system dramatically reduces the engineering burden and fabrication costs of your fixtures. The resulting simplification saves time and money for each fixture type, and allows fixtures that are more rugged and reliable.

Reduce labor cost - In addition to reducing fixture costs, the labor savings during two-axis measurements can be considerable. Furthermore, the process of accumulating three dimensional multi-axis CG, MOI, and POI can get quite complicated with multiple axis definitions and frequent axis sign transformations. Our integrated system will seamlessly and automatically input the CMM data from your arm or laser tracker into our optional 3-D software package; further increasing your savings. When used with optional Scripting Software, production efficiencies will further improve. Finally, the CMM system can be periodically verified for accuracy making measurement traceability easily determined, reducing time and money after the measurement is complete.

CMM arm operation - The CMM arms allow the operator to simply and quickly touch the 7-axis articulated probe to various reference datums on the payload providing substantial labor savings at the time of measurement. The location data is automatically uploaded to the mass properties measurement software which then calculates and reports the center of gravity location relative to your datum location as well as to the instrument coordinate system.

Laser CMM system - For our largest machines, we offer time-of-flight laser CMM systems with span up to 250 foot range. These offer a solution with suitable accuracy for larger payload location problems.

Typical results - Our center of gravity capable machine such as the KSR or POI series are able to locate CG to within 0.0001 inch (2.5 microns). Using traditional fixturing methods, it is extraordinary difficult to reference a test part datum to better than 0.010 inch (0.25 mm). To do significantly better than 0.010", an enormous burden is put on the fixture design, driving up the fixturing costs ten fold. To locate a 20 foot long, 3,000 lb missile to a few thousandths of an inch requires a sophisticated engineering effort, precision machining of large aluminum parts, exacting welding and assembly procedures, and precisely known contact points and end-stop locations. The truth is; it is only required that you actually know where the test payload is relative to the machine's rotational spindle axis. Until now, the only way to determine this relationship was through tightly designed initial dimensional control and through careful deflection control while under load. A CMM system allows for greatly reduced complexity of the fixture while providing the all-important final positional relationship between the payload and machine.