As the title states, I am looking for some suggestions on a tool to measure the flatness of the grind wheels in our CNC machines at work. Every two weeks as part of verifying the calibration of the machine I also have to measure the flatness of the grind wheels. The grind wheels are bonded material like a jumbo bench grinder wheel to give you a picture. When new they are about 34 inches in diameter and about 2 inches wide. As the surface wears we dress the wheel up with a diamond wheel. We have to ensure that the flatness across the wheel has no more than 0.002 inch of variation for our production work. Currently, I have to set up a digital dial indicator and probe the wheel in several spots with it mounted on a mag base. This involves moving two separate axes manually with the handle/corded control. We are working to add a long-term upgrade to the machine so that it can check this it's self however I am looking for a short-term solution. The CNC machine already has 11 axes as it is. Is there something like a surface profilometer that can be handheld to spot check this surface?
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Tool to measure flatness on a CNC grind wheel
- Thread starter tvtaurus
- Start date
sweet victory
Well-known member
Does your company own a faro arm?
Does your company own a faro arm?
No, but that actually might work. We only have a stationary CMM in a climate controlled bay outside of our cal lab.
Technic_569
Well-known member
For a while my company was looking into a laser profileometer to check some of our produced parts. We had a rep from Keyence come in and give us the dog and pony show with one of these and it looked pretty neat! We did however get some sticker shock with it which curbed the project at 20K per unit. The unit that we were looking at had a resolution down to a few tenths across a 3" face.
https://www.keyence.com/products/measure/laser-2d/lj-v/index.jsp
https://www.keyence.com/products/measure/laser-2d/lj-v/index.jsp
A Zoller might work but you would have to remove the wheel. If you dress the wheels on the machine you just need it to be flat to the work piece.
Can you just do cuts on a sample piece of metal and take it to a surface plate? Or cmm? If it’s cnc you can make a program and just run it each time it’s needed.
Can you just do cuts on a sample piece of metal and take it to a surface plate? Or cmm? If it’s cnc you can make a program and just run it each time it’s needed.
For a while my company was looking into a laser profileometer to check some of our produced parts. We had a rep from Keyence come in and give us the dog and pony show with one of these and it looked pretty neat! We did however get some sticker shock with it which curbed the project at 20K per unit. The unit that we were looking at had a resolution down to a few tenths across a 3" face.
https://www.keyence.com/products/measure/laser-2d/lj-v/index.jsp
We already use several Keyence products currently. We have a 75k Keyence microscope for measuring less than 0.0001 of an inch.
matt_i
Well-known member
Its my 0.002 but anything that contacts a grinding wheel is eventually going to get worn out itself.
I think one idea is above, setup a part/program to make a light pass on a rigid part and measure the result.
The other idea is air gauging which is quite sensitive but you'll have to go down the route of an OEM.
I think one idea is above, setup a part/program to make a light pass on a rigid part and measure the result.
The other idea is air gauging which is quite sensitive but you'll have to go down the route of an OEM.
Its my 0.002 but anything that contacts a grinding wheel is eventually going to get worn out itself.
I think one idea is above, setup a part/program to make a light pass on a rigid part and measure the result.
The other idea is air gauging which is quite sensitive but you'll have to go down the route of an OEM.
That really won't work with this machine and how it operates. It is purpose built to grind specific spinning parts in a variety of drive spindles. It already has two measurement Axes but they do not have the ability to measure this area. This CNC machine is a little bigger than a 1.5 car garage.
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