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Keyence IM-7020 or Mitutoyo QV Apex CNC Vision Measurement Machines

MrCntry

Plastic
Joined
Oct 23, 2013
Location
So. California
Hello,

Is anyone familiar with the NEW Keyence IM-7020 or the Mitutoy QV Apex CNC Vision Measuring machines? We just had a demo of both machines. We had a demo about 6 months ago with the Keyence IM-6500 machine but it was not able to measure our close tolerance bores / counterbores that we do because of the lighting. They now have a new IM-7020 that has a ring light and a light probe. So with the new lighting they are able to pick up the edges of the close tolerance counterbores and give accurate measurements. This model has a probe also that will pick up any bores as well for more accuracy. Our counterbores are usually +.0004 / -.0000 tolerance. We use deltronics bore gages for this but would be nice to check bores that we don't have gages with as well. The keyence demo went really well. The new machine was able to check our part very accurately. Even the .6250 +.0004 / -.0000 counterbore was very accurate. It repeated on a few parts we used to check. This was very nice. Most other dimensions we have are +/- 0.0005. So pretty wide open for us.

We also had a demo for the Mitutoyo QV Apex machine the day after. We made sure we took the same parts that the keyence measured as we knew what these parts were. Right away Mitutoyo knocked down keyence machine stating the accuracy of the Keyence was not up to par their machine. The Mitutoyo has a much higher accuracy and they wouldn't trust keyence to measure parts that close in tolerance. Both machines are pretty close to the same in price so lets test out the Mitutoyo. They set up the machine and took measurements of most of the part. When it came to the counterbore it read it was 0.6263 / 0.6265. We already knew this dimension was betweeen 0.6252 / 0.6253 using deltronics bore gages. They adjusted the lighting and checked it about 10 more times. It was coming out consistantly 0.6263/0.6265. Now we were questioning ourself as if we used the wrong bore gages when checking since every check was off the same amount. Since we did have to travel to Mitutoyo showroom we asked to check the part on one of their CNC CMM's. They finally got some one qualified to work it and checked out the part 5 times. Their reading now were 0.6250/0.6251. They are showing in tolerance with the CMM. Well, after 2 hours being there we left. They wanted to keep our sample parts so they can try to figure out why the machine is off on this dimension.

Anyways, I wanted to see if anyone has had any experience with either of these machines. The Keyence IM-7020 is a newer machine so I am not sure if anyone on here would have any info.

Thanks for any feedback you might have.
 
I have had the pleasure of using Keyence sensors and other components for years. They are top notch in my opinion. Usually, when I happened to mention Keyence to my peers I got, "who is Keyence?". We had a demo of the Keyence video measuring machine about 6 months ago and it passed our tests very favorably. We did not check any tolerances that were as tight as what you had but were impressed with the speed mostly and the accuracy of what we gave them.

I also worked at a place that used Trumpf fiber lasers for marking medical implants and when we tested the Keyence fiber laser, it beat Trumpf hands down. Keyence is a very innovative company and has a lot of really awesome products.

I'm really disappointed that Mitutoyo blew off Keyence so readily. My experience is otherwise.

Paul
 
I also used Keyence ,among others, products for in-die sensing systems I created and was quite satisfied with the quality and reliability of their products. I did not know they had moved into CMM but would readily put them on the list of candidates for testing.
 








 
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