Software updates to Lisa and Lisa PRO selective laser sintering (SLS) 3D printers make them compliant with Industry 4.0 standards. One of the aims of Industry 4.0 readiness is automated integration with factory logistics. Devices such as 3D printers need to output job status data, and Lisa and Lisa PRO now provide such information. A print monitor online function allows remote print tracking, and the user interface is more intuitive and easier to operate with easily accessible functions.
The software update also enhances Sinterit Studio – a comprehensive tool to manage the 3D printing process – which now has a better object collision detector.
CERTIFICATIONS
3DEO, a metal 3D printing company based in Los Angeles, California, has received ISO 9001:2015 certification to further the commercialization of its technology. The certification allows 3DEO to operate more effectively on several different levels, including the ability to focus on customer requirements, ensure consistent production, and continuously improve the production process. The certification process took only 3 months, whereas implementation typically takes 6 months to 12 months.
Elementum 3D, a developer and supplier of metal additive manufacturing (AM) materials, has been certified for quality management. The scope of Elementum 3D certification includes the design and manufacture of advanced metals, superalloys, and composites; development of new manufacturing processes; and manufacture of prototype and production parts to customer specifications.
HDC jet-through holders enable high-precision 5-axis machining with 35,000rpm max. speed and 1/4" to 1/2" clamping range. The holders’ thread feature allows convertible coolant delivery with jet-through coolant or center-through coolant. Jet-through hydraulic chucks are ideal for finishing applications – coolant flows through the end of the tool holder and is angled to direct coolant to the cutting tool tip, greatly improving surface finish and tool life. HDC tool holders use only one hex key wrench to clamp or loosen the cutting tool, making tool changes fast and easy. Every HDC toolholder is guaranteed to 0.00012" TIR at 5x diameter.
Juno Outer Loop Control integrated circuits (ICs) provide functions for spindle, centrifuge, and precision torque control. Available in a 64-pin TQFP package measuring 12mm x 12mm, Juno incorporates digital logic integration and intelligent algorithm development, making them suitable for controlling pressure, temperature, liquid level, magnetic bearings, chemical reaction rate, and other outer loop quantities for medical, industrial, and military applications.
In a ventilator application, the speed of a brushless DC (BLDC) motor turbine directly affects the measured chamber pressure. A control host sends a stream of pressure commands to the Juno IC, which executes its outer loop function to maintain the desired pressure. Juno monitors system parameters at up to 10kHz.
ShapeSmart NP50 pinch/peel grinder supports round and non-round high-accuracy punches and pins. Improvements to the option for pinch grinding non-round parts improves accuracy and speed. The non-round process includes full pinch/peel grinding, ensuring extremely high tolerances, form accuracy, and the lowest total indicator reading (TIR) achievable, particularly important for thin and long parts. Oblong punches, form punches, squares out of center, corner radiuses, and any other shape can be produced with this method. The NP50 optimizes cylindrical grinding of carbide, ceramics, tool steel, and stainless steel with maximum surface finish and concentricity. Rough and finish grinding are performed in one pass, eliminating a separate process and reducing cycle time. The machine uses different grinding wheels running on separate spindles, positioned on independently controlled CNC linear slides.
Humans can focus vision close up or far away, but machines have traditionally struggled with variable-distance focusing, limiting the effectiveness of commercial liquid lens technology found in microscopes, metrology inspection systems, and diagnostic equipment. New technology, however, is giving machines the ability to control lens focal length at extremely high speeds, creating an asset in industries such as the medical field and in scientific, industrial, and commercial applications, where there is great demand to quickly control lens focus to support high-speed inspection.
Traditional non-contact inspection systemsrequire mechanical movement of the lens assembly, slowing overall inspection throughput. Liquid lenses can more readily keep pace with speed demands.
In the last decade there has been a rise in technologies created to tackle speed issues, including those that use a liquid to focus light. In medical applications specifically, liquid lenses are being used for high-throughput inspection because they can overcome limitations around the need for mechanical focusing of the optics. This includes faster, qualitative inspection of medical parts being manufactured.
Liquid lens evolution
Before liquid lenses, mechanical focusing had to be designed into an optical system, which meant having a component raise and lower optics, enabling the user to refocus on different heights of an object. With liquid lenses and extended depth of focus (EDOF) software, a user can expand depth of field and eliminate the need for mechanical refocusing, making inspection simpler and faster.
The first liquid lens technologies, variable focus lenses, came around the start of the new millennium and relied on electrowetting to alter the shape of liquid. Electrowetting uses two fluids of similar density and different refractive indexes (typically water and oil). One fluid acts as a conductor while the other acts as an insulator, and applying voltage can control the shape of the interface.
Lenses that use electrowetting are compact, have low power consumption (tens of mW), provide a relatively large optical power range (15 diopters), and are inexpensive to manufacture. However, drawbacks include aberrations due to the orientation of the optical axis and a relatively low focusing speed. These aberrations restrict lens use in robotics applications because the robotic arm includes several orientations.
In 2010, a variable focus lens was developed that used optical fluid in a chamber with a flat side on one end and an elastic polymer membrane on the other. It altered fluid shape by:
Pumping fluid in/out of chamber to alter lens curvature
Changing lens aperture with a device similar to an iris diaphragm
Mechanically or electrically applying pressure outside of the chamber
Each method creates a physical change in the liquid by physically changing the shape of the membrane.
Compared to electrowetting-based lenses, these lenses are dimensionally larger, yet share disadvantages of low focusing speed and aberrations due to optical axis orientation.
In 2011, a new liquid lens technology, initially developed at Princeton University, was introduced to the market: tunable acoustic gradient (TAG) index-of-refraction lens. Sound shapes light by putting a sound wave through a liquid, changing its density and altering the way the light penetrates. This liquid lens is inherently faster, running at 70kHz, which means it’s changing or sweeping through all focal points every 14 microseconds.
Applications of TAG lenses
TAG lenses offer the benefits of diffraction-limited performance, fast focus variation, lack of mechanically moving parts, and high transmission for near- infrared (NIR) and visible wavelengths, making them suitable for many industrial, scientific, and medical applications. Their diffraction-limited performance paves the way for integration into high-precision and high-accuracy metrology systems used in medical, semiconductor, automotive, and aerospace applications, allowing for significant system enhancements.
TAG lenses, when combined with high-speed embedded image processing, increase the measurement throughput of inspection systems.
This simplifies interfaces and minimizes hardware needed, resulting in faster and more economical inspection solutions. They can also be integrated into high-powered microscopes and other telecentric optical systems. Additionally, controllable image sampling at various heights, synchronized with the TAG lens and image acquisition system, allows for high-speed autofocus and 3D imaging without mechanically moving parts, which is ideal in biomedical and industrial applications.
Combining a TAG lens with high-speed image acquisition and processing also makes high-speed 3D imaging and analysis possible, offering new possibilities in defect detection and measurement of moving parts for inline inspection.
The future of liquid lenses
In terms of future applications for liquid lenses, robotics is on the horizon – specifically in applications where a robotic arm with a liquid lens imaging system allows for greater high-speed optical inspection of medical and other parts. Applications that leverage liquid lenses for higher power laser material processing also have great potential.
Eccentric Positioning System uses Siemens Sinumerik technology to position an object anywhere in a 215mm circle with accuracy, speed, and controlled force.
An advanced positioning system that eliminates hydraulics and pneumatics can adapt to changing conditions in ID grinding and turning applications, reducing setup and cycle times while shrinking system footprint.
Coventry Associates’ (Shrewsbury, Massachusetts) 3-axis Eccentric Positioning System (EPS) is fully electric and uses less energy than pneumatic/hydraulic positioning systems while remaining cost competitive, says Coventry Associates President Craig Gardner.
The mechatronic EPS system consists of a stack of three eccentric rotary tables. Controlling the rotation of each rotary table allows users to precisely position and angle tools. The positioning accuracy and adaptive performance of the EPS system is enabled by Siemens Sinumerik CNC.
EPS has already been incorporated into an ID grinding machine where it has demonstrated three critical capabilities.
Dress or grind any shape without using diamond rolls, special dressing attachments
Adaptively controls normal grinding force rather than feed rate, dramatically improving material removal rate
Compensates in real-time for deflections that result in workpiece diameter and/or taper variation, improving quality and throughput
“It has potential applications in all grinding and turning operations for the machine tool industry,” Gardner explains.
Coventry engineers plan to make EPS suitable for any machining operation that requires high positioning accuracy and controlled force.
The company’s launch product, EPS SingleTool, is designed for bearing ID grinding operations, using a single wheelhead. A shoe or chuck workhead can be used with a single-point or rotary dresser for shaping any contour. Power consumption is 10kW max. and the weight is 630kg, with 305mm x 660mm x 560mm exterior dimensions.
Coventry validated EPS SingleTool’s positioning performance using a laser interferometer for resolution, accuracy, repeatability, and straightness. Because of the unique kinematics of the EPS, all motions are 3-axis interpolated moves. Results of these measurements are shown in the table on page 16. Tests show state-of-the-art positioning capability with 52nm repeatability. The system also has high static and dynamic stiffness and can grind with large forces and make rapid motions to minimize time required to make non-grinding motions.
Coventry worked with Fraunhofer USA offices in Boston, Massachusetts, along with two key partners, Saint Gobain Abrasives and Siemens Industry Inc., to develop the initial SingleTool ID grinding application.
“Our business strategy is to bring the EPS to market as a hardware and software solution, either as a complete machine to end users or as a platform for machine builders,” Gardner concludes. “Our solution features all-electric operation, using no pneumatics or hydraulics. We typically see resolution less than 0.120µm with 0.050µm repeatability, plus linear accuracy to 0.120µm with consistent static and dynamic stiffness to a maximum grinding force of 3.34kN. Rapid motion, including acceleration and deceleration, is tracking a 203mm movement in 1.16 sec.”
Figure 1 (ABOVE) shows accurate steps and repeatability without backlash in 0.125µm steps over a total travel of 5µm. Figure 2 (BELOW) shows the X deviation or straightness achieved during 3 back and forth (6 passes total) Z-axis moves. This data shows that the difference between the maximum and minimum values for all 6 passes was <1µm throughout 200mm of travel.
Tool grinding solutions
Departments - Featured Product
In addition to low-vibration gray cast iron frames and gantry-type construction, the Walter Helitronic Raptor and Walter Helitronic Raptor Diamond are designed to accommodate a range of options.
Walter Helitronic Raptor and Helitronic Raptor Diamond grind and re-sharpen rotationally symmetrical tools. Raptor– Well-suited for shops that don’t require automatic tool support systems, automatic grinding wheel changers, or similar features, but still need flexibility for diverse types of tools.
15.4hp (11.5kW) spindle
Up to 12.6" (320mm) diameter; 11.0" (280mm) length tools, including end face operations
Walter Helitronic Tool Studio software for tool grinding efficiency
Raptor Diamond– Fine Pulse Technology produces tools with smoother, perfected exteriors and cutting edges along with super-fine finishes. Fine Pulse Technology finely finishes tools made from the most common polycrystalline diamond (PCD) types, from 10µm grain size to coarse-grained formulations. Diamond is suitable for shops that do not require features such as automatic tool support systems or automatic grinding wheel/electrode changers, but still need a high degree of flexibility in the working area for diverse tools.
15.4hp (11.5kW)
Up to 15.7" (400mm) diameter, 10.6" (270mm) length tools including end face operations
Standard HSK interface for electrode/wheel grinding
Posted by Elizabeth Engler Modic
