On July 3, 2019, Renishaw, a multinational company in the field of engineering technology, recently released a styli made by Yuan Zengcai and included it in its full range of styli products.
It is reported that this is a styli with complex shape and structure manufactured by 3D printing technology. It uses titanium alloy material with light weight, sturdy structure, and can detect the internal features of the workpiece that traditional styli cannot touch.
Additive manufacturing styli
For styli that cannot be produced using traditional manufacturing techniques, Renishaw offers a one-stop styli solution by using additive manufacturing (AM) technology, also known as metal 3D printing. Renishaw's own additive-manufactured styli measure the characteristics of workpieces that cannot be reached by other styli, providing a flexible, high-performance solution for complex inspection applications.
A key advantage of additive manufacturing technology is the ability to quickly print out customized products without the need for traditional stylus manufacturing styli. In most cases, lead times for custom styli components produced by additive manufacturing are shorter than those of traditional methods. The use of metal powder bed melting technology to produce specially customized styli offers new possibilities for manufacturing styli with complex shapes and structures. Titanium additive-manufactured styli are lightweight and sturdy, and can be mounted on a variety of measuring equipment to detect previously unreachable workpiece features.
Touch internal features
Additive manufacturing technology has become increasingly popular due to its ability to make customized, rigid, lightweight, and complex structures. This technology can produce a variety of special measuring rods with hollow mesh structures for different applications. No need for heavy and cumbersome adapters and straight rods to obtain various types of measuring rods. The lightweight construction of the stylus allows the necessary length and rigidity to be achieved without exceeding the load carrying capacity of the stylus.
Titanium alloy is the preferred material for additive manufacturing styli; this material has a high stiffness-to-weight ratio, good thermal stability, and can be easily processed into a thin-walled network structure. Additive manufacturing styli can also be machined with internal threads (M2 / M3 / M4 / M5), so they can be connected directly to Renishaw's existing standard styli components.
Five-axis measurement of internal features
Renishaw's REVO® five-axis measuring system offers first-class flexibility in touching the features of the workpiece, and the flexibility is further enhanced with custom-made additive styli.
In the past, if the internal characteristics of a workpiece could not be touched with a traditional stylus, the workpiece was usually divided into two parts for production to complete the measurement, which greatly increased the manufacturing cost of the product.
Now mount custom curved styluses designed for specific applications to the REVO-2 probe head, and the stylus is able to measure key features deep inside the workpiece. With this cost-effective solution, the factory no longer needs to split production workpieces.
Large disc styli
Larger workpieces also require larger styli accordingly, and the weight of larger styli may exceed the load-carrying capacity of the probe. Additive manufacturing styli provide a rigid, lightweight structural solution. Take a disc-shaped styli with a diameter of 200 mm. Compared to traditional styli, the mass of an additive manufacturing styli is reduced by 80%. This styli is made of titanium alloy and has a polished outer The surface is also coated with a silicon nitride coating to prevent wear.
In precision measurement applications, there is no alternative to collecting accurate surface data by physically touching the key features of the workpiece. For complex structures, custom styli are usually required to measure difficult-to-tact features. Additive manufacturing styli can measure features of workpieces that are not reachable by other styli, providing a flexible and manipulative solution for complex inspection applications.