Usage of Artifact to verify CMM

[Braz60]

New to the Forum we were thinking of purchasing an Artifact to verify that our CMM's are still within calibration. Has anyone had experience using one could you share your thoughts.

[Roberto]

Search for threads on calibration that Hilton Roberts has posted in. He is a Guru in calibration and tracking how your machine is performing. His first question to you will be, "Do you have a "master part" that you measure every day?

Here is one of the links.

http://www.pcdmisforum.com/showthrea...hilton+roberts

[John Riggins]

We have created an artifact for doing exactly what you mention.
We machined the part (basically a circle_diamond_square with some contoured surfaces and holes) and then had it anodized and measured/certified by a lab.
I then wrote a PC-DMIS program duplicating the XYZ_IJK values from the lab report.
Our machines are able to duplicate the lab's results within .0003".
I was happy with this.
We also saw correlation between our 3 CMMs within a similar variation.
We run the artifact program whenever we have a machine calibration or repair and just anytime we want to verify that things are still "OK".
It does not replace the need for calibration, but it does give you confidence that the machine is performing as expected.
I only wish the artifact were bigger (we have LARGE CMMs).

[prairiski]

We are currently using an "Artifact" which is one of the original Hexagon aluminum test blocks measured and qualified by Hexagon and includes a simple program (writtem in 3.5 and edited for use in PCDMIS2010MR2) to periodically (every 3 months) and annually run to document any changes in our DCC CMM Product Assurance Software and individual machine measurement capabilities in order to meet the Boeing Digital Product Definition and Model Based Definition requirements.

It was not cheap. However, it was cheaper than purchasing a Ball Bar set-up which may require a 3rd party annual calibration.

Contact your Hexagon sales rep and/or Technical Support for further info.

Good luck!

[Ironhoe]

the renishaw checking fixture is nice, and there is a pretty slick program creating tool to go with it.

[Braz60]

Here is the Artifact we are thinking of purchasing

[johnP]

We have and use one very similar to the one shown. Helps to dispell those pesky manufacturing types that doubt you CMM's repeatability. Check on a monthy basis or after a Bonobo ape crash.

[Roberto]

Braz60, check this one too. It's about what programmers use to verify their CMM accuracy.

http://www.pcdmisforum.com/showthrea...hilton+roberts

[mconklin]

We use one that is from a gage company to verify anytime that we change the software and they send a program for us to use and it seems to work fine

[Cookie]

I just take one of our most complex parts and run it thru a few times and save the results.

Then anytime anyone doubts the readings that we get I can rerun the part and compare the results .

Works good forafter crashes and for when operators really screw up coordinate on a machining centers.


Beeer Thirty