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sony rips off newall

JHOLLAND1

Titanium
Joined
Oct 8, 2005
Location
western washington state
Two years Sony sold the Magnescale metrology line to Mori Seiki. About the time of this transaction Sony introduced a tubular scale/encoder which was close to a spittin image of Newall Spherosyn. Mori-Magnescale chose not to carry over the SJ 300--declaring it discontinued. It had a life of only a few months and a working example may never have made it into the field. A german website has the incriminating evidence.

http://www.kuchel.de/katalog/DRO_engl_final.pdf

jh
 
Mori Seiki was smart enough to avoid SJ-300 due to patent infringements I would guess.

We done away with all the glass scale units in the shop several years ago and went with Newall,you can take a piss right on the scale then sprinkle it with brass shavings and it will never miss a beat.We even had a scale come up bent (no one knew anything about it),I straighted it out and put it right back in service.
 
jh --

Magnescale (magnetic), Sokki (magnetic), and Inductosyn (inductive) machine-tool scale systems have always been immune to the types of contaminants that optically-read systems are sensitive to, and in at least one application I'm aware of, are deliberately immersed in USP mineral oil to substantially preclude saltwater intrusion.

So while the Sony SJ scale and reader are visually strikingly similar to the Newall Spherosyn scale and reader, I can't consider the SJ to be a "ripoff" of the Spherosyn until Sony's use of stacked-ball scales is confirmed.

John
 
John Garner

Your point is well taken--and the answer as to what lies within a stainless appearing tube in images of the SL 300 Sony may forever remain a mystery.
I have been a user of Newall since 1980. The original Spherosyn readerhead required input 12 vdc for the coils and output a 2 vdc sine wave with period of 12.7 mm.
But about 6 years ago Newall introduced the TT series readerhead--used the same tube but required input of 5 vdc and output digital ttl formats/EIA 422. I had one of these I used on my bench for wiring compatibility between various digital display brands.
Sony does not tip their hand as to what is in the tube-and since Mori-Magnescale labels the SL 300 -discontinued- we will likely never know, especially since Sony has blocked access to all Magnescale factory manuals.
Sony declared the SL 300 a "better idea". If it truly was a better idea, why was the product discontinued?
I have a lathe, od grinder, sinker edm with Magnescale and would gladly swap for a tube scale- if space considerations were not a factor.

jh


http://sony-magnescale.com/documents/encoders/sj300.pdf
 
I have been a user of Newall since 1980.

I have a c. 1980 Newall on my Bridgeport. This is 30+ years, perhaps there is nothing to stop Sony or others using this system by now?

BTW, Newall was using balls or rollers on their jig borers long before this, e.g in the 1960's, with the mechanical Microlater system. Perhaps this is where they got the idea?
 








 
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