What is The Renishaw Sprint™ Scanning System for Cnc Machine Tools?

Good morning everyone my name is Justin Walford, I am responsible for the SPRINT marketing and my colleague Paul Moore on the right here is head of our applications team. And today we're delighted to show you our new and exciting technology the SPRINT system. SPRINT is a new game-changing contact scanning system for CNC machine tools. Targeted at very specific applications initially but it provides new methods of on-machine process control and capability. It is aimed at measuring parts on the machine scanning at very high speed at up to 15 metres per minute and providing exceptional accuracy of the parts being measured. And bringing new capability to process control. The SPRINT system scans along a preprogrammed path and records deflections from the path and these deflections are synchronised with machine position data to give true 3D point data of the measurement part. And this is one of the unique parts about the system, no other system is giving true 3D scanning data. It gives very high surface data density, one thousand true data points per second, obviously providing a lot of data which obviously leads to a very good understanding of feature form. Compared to traditional touch trigger systems, a scanning system provide significant cycle time savings, better accuracy and obviously a much increased data volume which gives you a much better understanding of your part. The system architecture consists of of the OSP60 probe, which is a very robust probe, designed for the harsh machine environment. Designed for the harsh tool changes that has to incur. It has a optical link to the OMM receiverl; this provides us with a range of four, four and a half metres, although you can use multiple receivers to extend that range. We have an interface box which is synchronising the probe data with the machine tool position data and sending all of the data to our CNC plugin which is on the control doing the analysis and handling of the data. Externally to the system we have our productivity plus editor pro software which is the tool to create the cycles that are running on the machine and this tool is needed for our prismatic part feature functionality. The SPRINT system is targeted at high-value CNC machining and it is targeted for process control. We released the functionality in four key areas. Firstly our standard prismatic feature measurement functionality, which is the standard functionality of the system for measuring cycles, arcs and planes. And then additionally we have three specific applications (tool kits) for specific tasks. The first is a blade measurement tool kit, the second a mill turn, or a highly repeatable diameter measurement and the third is a very fast verification of machine capability which we call machine health check. Firstly our prismatic capability; this is the standard functionality that is programmed through our software . This allows you to measure cycles, arcs and planes very fast, at up to 50 metres per second. 1000 data points per second. This is our Productivity+ active editor pro software suite that we use to program the part which generates the executables that can be run on the machine. Our CNC plugin that is running on the machine gives a live feedback of results and output, and data can be output to other systems or output to log files for reporting. Whilst it is a scanning system it can also do touch trigger tasks for set-up tasks. But it's big advantage is obviously the speed and the accuracy it can collect data and depending on the part that you are measuring it can offer very significant cycle time saving and this is one example of our prismatic part measurement where we see about a five to six times cycle time saving in measuring these features. Our blade toolkit - sorry I should say the prismatic part measurement we will be showing in the demonstration area shortly after the presentation. Our blade toolkit is designed for performing blade tip refurbishment, root blending for bladed disks application an d on machine process control for blade manufacturing. It performs high speed measurement and collection of blade sections. It maintains high data integretity even on the leading and the trailing edges of the blade that is obviously a key requirement these days. It is designed to be a drop in replacement to an existing touch trigger system but it offers significant cycle time advantages and accuracy advantages over the existing system. Here is some video of the toolkit in action. It goes through a series of stages and steps and tasks. We first carry out a procedure to locate the blade and align it by locating the edges. So we have got edge find to locate the blade and orientate it. We then measure the blade in four static orientations so the two faces and the leading and the trailing edge. We take a number of sections which are predefined or you can define the number of sections that you wish to measure. Again, collecting a lot of data; and the data from these four static orientations or patches like we like to call them are then combined into one model and we generate a surface through the model and then we output points to your specification to the points that you need to have. On the surface or the tip surface and we output these to a reporting file. Which can be then sent to your chosen CAD/CAM package or an adaptive process to cut measure cut capability. Secondly our MTM tool kit is our multi-task machine tool kit. This is designed for highly repeatable diameter measurement on Y axis lathes. It has the potential to be a very accurate cycle providing one to two microns of accuracy. The cycle works by having a reference ring permanently mounted on the machine, preferably somewhere near the part, preferably with the same material so it has the same coefficient of expansion. We take a measurement on this reference artefact prior to taking a measurement on the part and this allows us to carry out a degree of thermal compensation on the part for when we are cutting the part for the diameter that we want to achieve. We recommend the use of coolant, for better thermal stability. But in the video we're showing without coolant just so you can see it slightly better. We have made a measurement on the reference artefact and now we are making a measurement on the part, notice the probe is measuring the part whilst it is rotating and the probe is also moving over the spindle axis and it is the combination of this process that allows us to achieve the accuracy that we desire and also allows use to separate out a number of components. From our own tests we get plus or minus one micron of repeatability, and from the processing we output diameter, runout, roundness and the on centre error. Four parameters come out of the cycle. These are then loaded into the machine variables. They are subsequently utilised in a cut, measure, cut process. Thirdly the machine health check tool kit, this allows us to verify machine capability in less than a minute. It is designed as a very quick and simple go/no go check prior to cutting a part. It consists of two tests one for a three-axis machine and one for multi-axis machines. The tests consist of having a magnetic artefact mounted on the machine, with a known sphere, with a three-axis test and then this cylinder with the cone drilled into the top of it for the five axis test. The health check cycle can be set-up to be near automated and provide a daily health check on your system to monitor machine capability over time. Starting with a three axis check on the sphere, the probe first locates the sphere and then it takes a series of measurements. Profile measurements across the sphere. Obviously we are collecting a lot of data, 1000 points per second. We get a very good understanding of the form of the sphere and we can use this form to generate a form error that can be output to the machine variables used as a tolerance check prior to deciding whether to proceed to cutting a part. It must be noted that we do not update the machine axis information, so this is an output that is just for you to decide whether your machine is ready for machining of the part. For the multi-axis machines we drive the probe into the cone inside cylinder and then rotate the table in a number of orientations. As you can see the cycles are very quick and once you have collected the data you can calculate the pivot point error with the machine at the two rotation centres and output this information to the machine variables for checking. It is designed a simple go/no go check in under a minute. Should the test fail, then we would recommend you move to a more comprehensive ball bar check to ascertain what it is about the machine that is causing it to be out of tolerance. In summary, it's a new and exciting technology, it's 3D, not other system is providing scanning data as true 3D data. Delivering high speed accurate data the whole system is fully integrated into the CNC process so we have had to work with Mazak to integrate the SPRINT system to talk to the machine. To extract the machine position. So it is fully integrated. It opens up new applications improving cycle time over time over touch trigger providing better data, better accuracy and leading to a better understanding of feature form. This open ups new processes for on machine process control and allows you to fundamentally rethink how you actually do process control with the high speed and the accuracy of the system. We believe that is really is a game changing system that will definitely in the future bring much benefit to the industry.