Old Gages Can Do New Tricks with MicroForm Retrofitting
ABTech now offers retrofits to convert older air bearing roundness gages from other manufacturers to our state-of-the-art MicroFormTM system.
Posted: January 15, 2014
ABTech (Swanzey, NH) now offers retrofits to convert older air bearing roundness gages from other manufacturers to our state-of-the-art MicroFormTM system. Precision manufacturers have used roundness gages for decades to inspect parts for roundness, flatness, concentricity and other form measurements.
Many firms still have the same gages from the 1980s and 1990s. The beauty of an air bearing based gage is there are no contacting parts to wear out, so an air bearing that is 30 or 40 years old should still be as accurate as when it was first made.
The problem with old gages are the controllers, computers or monitors have failed, or are no longer supported so the next failure may be terminal. Most of the original gage manufacturers either no longer exist, no longer have the ability to diagnose and repair, or are not interested in repairing preferring instead to sell new equipment.
A step-by-step illustration of precisely centering a part to the air bearing rotational axis on the MicroForm roundness gage using the spherical seat tilt and center worktable feature.
ABTech takes a different approach. Not only do they offer support and upgrades for our own products, but they see value in salvaging as much of a customer’s older gage as possible. If ABTech can be confident that each component will provide the required performance, stability and reliability, they will recondition them, saving the customer substantial money compared to a new gage.
As long as the air bearing can be refurbished, they recertify its accuracy; add new electronics; a large 22 in touchscreen monitor and a Windows based PC loaded with our intuitive MicroForm software. The most common form measurements are included; covering runout, roundness, flatness, concentricity (in and out of plane), parallelism and perpendicularity. On-site installation, setup and full system training are included with each gage. As is a full year of free software updates for a complete turnkey retrofit solution.
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