Product category:
Motor sports manufacturing: fabrication and assembly
News Release from: Newall Measurement Systems | Subject: DRO and encoder system
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 02 May 2003
Accurate measurement helps win
championships
Use of highly accurate DRO and encoder system contributed to Toyota Motorsport's ongoing success in South African production racing, rally and off-road racing championships.
Toyota Motorsport's ongoing success in the South African production car racing championship, rally championship and off-road racing championship has been attributed to a number of factors, including the highly accurate Topaz digital readout and robust Spherosyn encoder system from Newall Measurement Systems The long and gruelling motor sport season has seen Toyota Motorports successfully develop the team's cars through greater turnaround speeds and more accurate prototyping
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 31 Jan 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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'Ball' technology to feature in DROs
Reinforcing its reputation for innovation, Newall Measurement Systems will be unveiling several major new developments in linear encoder and readout technology at MACH 2002.
Digital encoders and DROs designed to reduce costs
Several major new developments in linear encoder and readout technology are aimed at reducing costs for machine tool builders and systems integrators.
This was possible due, in part, to the Spherosyn Digital linear encoder and Topaz digital readout (DRO) specified from Toolquip and Allied, a distributor for Newall Measurement Systems.
William McCallum, Technical Specialist at Toyota Motorsport, says Toyota's year-round campaign of designing, prototyping and manufacturing new components to boost performance and reliability hinged on the measuring equipment provided by Newall.
"The DRO and encoder have been on our manual milling machine for a year now," William explains.
Further reading
Digital linear encoder is 'on the ball'
Featuring a novel 'ball' technology, this digital encoder is competitively priced against glass- scale encoders and significantly reduces fitting time and dramatically increases efficiency levels.
DRO designed to increase machine efficiency
Offering OEMs, retrofitters and end users unbeatable value for money, a compact, easy-to-use, single-axis digital readout system is specifically designed to increase productivity.
"They've become a vital part of our tooling set-up, especially in prototyping, where maybe three or four parts can be built from one prototype.
If the prototype is wrong, we end up scrapping four parts - and that's expensive." Since the introduction of the ball-based encoder system, William says the Toyota team has been able to modify, and therefore fit, engine blocks and gearboxes more accurately, reduce the impact of expensive modifications and, most crucially, save time.
"If you want a job modified by a technician, you want it done as soon as possible.
If we didn't have the digital readout and linear encoder, we would have to measure the milling machine's movement by conventional methods, and that's when errors can occur." The Spherosyn Digital minimises measurement mistakes by achieving accuracy levels of ñ10 micron +5 micron/m, resolutions of up to 1micron and repeatability within one resolution count.
Speed is also an issue and Newall's digital encoder is able to achieve traverse rates of up to 20m/sec at 10 micron resolution and 2m/sec at 1 micron resolution.
However, since the Spherosyn Digital shows none of the wear characteristics usually associated with glass encoders, the need for costly replacements, cleaning and maintenance is removed - again saving time.
Toyota's manual milling machine was also fitted with a Topaz two-axis DRO, which provides absolute or incremental operation with linear error compensation, inch-to-metric conversion and continuous data memory.
Used in conjunction with Newall's Spherosyn linear encoder, the Topaz DRO offers accurate measurement and vastly improved accuracy.
For William and the Toyota Motorsport technical team, it's all about time.
"It speeds up the whole process," he says.
"You can move to any point and zero the axis.
It means you can start working without having to perform a host of time-consuming calculations. Request a free brochure from Newall Measurement Systems ...
It's so easy to use.".
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