Hand Held CMM

Had this Keyence demoed in my office yesterday.I have never had hands on with one before but I was shocked how easy and fast this was to pickup and post reports. The videos mostly suck.
The table has a lock position and then will do 2x3ft area. But in the unlock position that table rotates and slides side to side for bigger or weird shaped parts.
$49k
Anyone used something better in that size/price range?
Gary

YouTube

I’m not sure I understand the benefit. A hand-held CMM would be great for inspecting large objects like car frames or objects hard to get to like the underside of already installed valve stems or something. Why would you pay a similar price for a similar size of CMM that’s made specifically to be used by a person? Verisurf makes a package that turns a renishaw equator into a CMM for about the same price, and you could probably find a gantry as well. Tool changer included.

I don’t have experience with hand held CMMs, but I probably won’t. A manual gantry CMM has its place, but again you can pick one of those up new from Mitutoyo for 10k on a special. If it fits your needs, I’d be curious to know why something DCC wouldn’t work as well.

New to this area of machinery but you are saying you can get a bridge cmm for 10k? If so link please.
Gary

Cycle1000 said:

New to this area of machinery but you are saying you can get a bridge cmm for 10k? If so link please.
Gary

Click to expand...

Haha, you’ve got me putting my money where my mouth is.

The company I worked for had a few of these older Mitutoyo CMMs of both manual and DCC sorts. I talked a sales guy down quite a bit on that smaller machine in the pamflet show with the link below, especially when I told him we were probably going to go with a different machine, so sub 20k. I couldn’t say which brands, but there are new manual CMMs out there in the 10-20k range that I’ve had quoted.

Just remember, for the most part you get what you pay for.

https://www.mitutoyo.com/Images/manual-CMM-promo.pdf

Thanks for the input, I did some searching on one of the models and others in that categoryish
One thing I noticed is if you had a part that you checked over and over again..and you had one of the bridge models programmed it would be fast, and expensive. But a worthwhile investment.

He asked about a part of mine but I let him demo on their setup piece. Once I seen how fast it worked I pulled out a fairly complex part. 2-3 min and the report was done..
I would be proficient within a day at most. But I am sure they are not the only game in town
Gary


But

I posted about his demo in my shop a cpl years ago if you look further down the subject list, but of course nothing that you didn't have demo'd to you first hand now.

It seems like quite the little gizmo, but I told him to come back when I can take the unit and set on the bed of my big lathes or mills and the handheld has reader pads looking the other way too. There are times when a CMM is needed over hard tooling, but if the part is bigger'n'a breadbox, I want to be able to gauge it before I take it out of the machine. I'd like to use it like a Romer, but this thing has WAY better accuracy's than an arm.


------------------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox

We have a romer arm. I wonder how accurate this is in comparison.

Stated accuracy is about +/- 0.0003”. It will do that on a ring gage or gage block. Bigger parts are a hassle because you must keep the artifacts on the gun within the field of view of the camera. Going behind the part is an issue. Small features are challenging because this is like TIG welding, you hold the gun with one hand and the remote with the other.

Ox said:

I posted about his demo in my shop a cpl years ago if you look further down the subject list, but of course nothing that you didn't have demo'd to you first hand now.

It seems like quite the little gizmo, but I told him to come back when I can take the unit and set on the bed of my big lathes or mills and the handheld has reader pads looking the other way too. There are times when a CMM is needed over hard tooling, but if the part is bigger'n'a breadbox, I want to be able to gauge it before I take it out of the machine. I'd like to use it like a Romer, but this thing has WAY better accuracy's than an arm.
Ox

Click to expand...

After the demo and your review you did not buy one?
So a ton of limitations, picky, picky, picky.
Good in what it does well, not really a market killer..
Better than an arm in some or maybe maybe many cases, not so in others.
Salesmen know how to demo these things to fantastic levels. That dog and pony show is rehearsed, taught and scripted.
Bob

He was just rolling through on tour.
I wasn't looking for one at the time.

Also, mine as well as another thread is in the metrology board.


------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox

The hard to get to feachers is made easier as the "bed" rotates..and still keeps its datum. And you can rotate move side to side and in and out and is still knows where it is..somehow.
My impression was it would be very versatile.

Cycle1000 said:

The hard to get to feachers is made easier as the "bed" rotates..and still keeps its datum. And you can rotate move side to side and in and out and is still knows where it is..somehow.
My impression was it would be very versatile.

Click to expand...

I for one am not arguing that at all, and if I was interested in a basic CMM, I would consider this.
I would consider others' experience with it as well - so I am not "selling" it either.

Just to be clear - my post was that I was not looking for, or overly interested in a basic CMM, but have applications at times where I would like to get a Faro Arm type unit to be able to use on big parts still in the machine, and if this could doo that, I would be that much more interested.

I just don't want you to think that I was downplaying the unit.
But I would consider Bob and J's point about getting behind features, but as you said - it can sit'n spin, so .....

I guess a good test would be to check a gauge block static, and then start it and move the slide/spin the wheel, and then see how the numbers compare?

Maybe Robert can give an instance where it is not so good - rather than just leaving it open ended?
Firth hand experience?


That said - I had a part in here this winter/spring that was dimmensioned in a way that hard tooling was not applicable, and I had to take it to my customer for First Article. This would have been nice at that time, but not $50K nice...



Other comments in these other threads:

Keyence XM Benchtop CMM

Keyence Handheld Probe CMM



------------------------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox

As soon as I took the salesman off script, he was lost. I kept getting the gun out of the cameras' view, which was frustrating. I didn't see anything obvious that would make it easier to use than any other CMM software.

Gary,

A buddy of mine that has an aerospace shop with about 30 people dropped one of these in a clean corner of his shop floor. It took a ton of workload of his metrology guy and CMM... machinists can just grab a first article out of the machine, walk over and check key dimensions and get right back to work. The shop guys all love it.

One of the guys there gave me a sub-10 minute lesson, and I was able to use it without any trouble straight away.

Has its niche for sure, but a really slick device.

jmho
PM

OX, that is how I took it just info no arguing
PM that is exactly the scenario that I think it would shine, and how I would use it.