A UK manufacturer of bespoke bearings and one of the biggest stockholders and distributors of plain bearings and sintered parts in Europe, Abingdon-based Bowman International, has upgraded the process of inspecting its products with the purchase of a new Altera 10.7.5 CMM built by LK Metrology.
Standard, bought-in products at Bowman generally only need first article inspection before batch delivery to a customer, so the daily workload on the CMM is relatively light. Conversely, bespoke bearings produced in-house normally sees the company check five to ensure consistency. This single business area therefore consumes a significant proportion of CMM capacity. Sometimes, when carrying out capability studies, 25 to 50 components require measurement. In one exceptional case, a customer requested 100% inspection of 100 Oilite safety-critical, self-lubricating bronze bearings.
Unlike on the company’s previous CMM, which only deployed touch-trigger probes, a notable difference with the new LK inspection platform is its SP25M scanning probe in addition to a variety of conventional probes, all for deployment on a PH10M Plus motorised indexing head. To enable tactile scanning as well as data analysis and reporting, LK supplied its own CAMIO 2024 R1 multi-sensor software and three-axis scanning module interfaced to the company’s NMC300 controller.
Owen White, Bowman’s quality manager, says: “On one of our 20 mm diameter bearings, for example, we used to measure 12 points around the top and bottom of the ID. We now capture more than 100 points in a shorter time, which gives us a much better idea of not only the part’s accuracy but also the overall form of the bore.”
More information www.lkmetrology.com
