VIDEO: TOOLING UP – Versatility of Measuring Tools and Data Collection with Mitutoyo

Narrator: Welcome to Tooling Up, a series by MSC Industrial Supply Company that provides real-world insights brought to you by leading industry experts and aimed at improving the efficiency and productivity of your operations.

Eddie: What's up everybody, this is Eddie with MSC and welcome to our latest episode of Tooling Up featuring our good friends at Mitutoyo. So today we're going to be covering not only the various tools that can be used to gather measurement data but also what we can do with that data once it's collected. So joining me today are two industry leading experts from the Mitutoyo team, Pat and Mike. So hey, we're gonna start off here with you Patrick. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do for the team over at Mitutoyo?

Patrick: Hey, I'm Pat Sullivan. I'm the Strategic Sales Rep for Mitutoyo. I work with all our larger distributors around the country.

Eddie: Well thank you so much for joining us and you, Mike, why don't you give us a little bit of insight on yourself and what you do for the team at Mitutoyo?

Mike: Yep, hi I'm Mike Grosenbach. I am the Product Specialist for hand tools and contact and non-contact sensors.

Eddie: Well right on. Well hey, well thank you as well for joining us and let's get things rolling. So we're going to talk about again various ways that we can gather that measurement data. We're going to start today with Patrick talking about hand tools. So Patrick, what do we need to know as we get started in this topic?

Patrick: Sure, most people know us for this tool that I'm holding here. It's a six-inch caliper. It's probably one of the most widely used tools in the world but what Mike and I want to do today was talk about our more unique tools and some of the other solutions that we have here at Mitutoyo. So the first one that I wanted to go over was our low-force caliper. Very similar to the standard caliper but what it has is a pressure gauge at the end so we can get the equal amount of force or a very light force of 0.5 Newtons on the part. This tool is very it's set up to to measure plastic parts or rubber parts. This is going to be the tool for you. I don't know how many times customers have come up to me and asked me about how do I measure an O-ring properly? Well, this tool right here this is the one that does it for you. So as you can see, I'm measuring the width and also the OD of a very soft part. So that's unheard of with a caliper because everyone's going to come down on it, squeeze it, you're not going to get the right measurement. With the low-force caliper, you can do that.

Eddie: So when it comes to your low-force caliper, how does it differ from let's say maybe a standard caliper?

Patrick: Yeah, well also let's say a customer is having an issue with repeatability or measurements between operators on the floor. Everyone's getting a different measurement or what we call gauge R&R. This tool you could come in, have your operators everyone's using the right amount of force, the same amount of force on every part, on every measurement, so your gauge R&R is going to go up. You can get more repeatable, more accurate measurements throughout the shop floor.

Eddie: Hey, sounds impressive and I also know when it comes to options at the Mitutoyo side, we have like the QuantuMike as well as the QuickMike so you want to tell us some of the differences between those two and then we can discuss when we're going to be using which.

Patrick: Yeah, absolutely Eddie. Have you ever seen an operator on the shop floor making a measurement and you see him rolling a micrometer up his sleeve? Have you ever seen that?

Eddie: Yeah.

Patrick: Sure right yeah. So what he's doing, he's looking for more speed. Oftentimes, we have multiple different dimensions that we got to measure with the same mic. With the QuantuMike and the QuickMike, you can do multiple dimensions faster and easier.

Eddie: Very good, so when it comes to the QuantuMike, what's so special about this?

Patrick: So the QuantuMike, you get the standard accuracy of a regular mic, you're going to get four times the speed but the same accuracy so there's not another gauge out there that you can get that speed, the accuracy and, more importantly, the manufactured quality that goes into this. If you take care of it, it's going to last a lifetime.

Eddie: No, very interesting. And so now we've covered multiple ways using the Mitutoyo hand tools to gather data. What are we going to do with this data once we have it collected?

Patrick: Absolutely. So we got a transmitter fit on the back of the QuantuMike. If you turn it around, you can see it's flush with the tool so it's conducive for a hand tool. It's not a big transmitter. It's not clunky and it uses a proprietary signal we call U-WAVE that sends a bi-directional communication, has a 60 feet range so you can send it into an Excel file or maybe even a SPC software, hopefully the Mitutoyo MeasurLink software.

Eddie: No, sounds great and really lots of options when it comes to just the hand tool measurement realm there from Mitutoyo, but as we transition into our next segment we're going to have Mike give us insight on linear gauges as well as sensors. Mike, what do you have for us?

Mike: Absolutely. So Patrick was talking about faster micrometers but what if you needed something even more fast or more accurate or say you had to do 100% inspection or even have something built inline into your system? Then the laser scan micrometer is probably what you're going to be looking at. Essentially it's a ribbon of light that's scanning across the part and measuring diameter or it can also measure the distance to the part like an indicator so you can also measure TIR. So basically you can see here, you drop it into place, you can instantly be measuring a diameter as we are here. So you can see it's easy, it's fast, and with something like this you're going to get a better gauge R&R and we have a whole line of these laser micrometers that go down to an accuracy of 12 millionths of an inch. Here's another example where we have an optional stage. We're measuring multiple diameters and you could hit a foot switch at any time during this process, send the data across directly into Excel or into SPC software, or you could scan across the part and measure taper, you know at something like 100 measurements per second. This is scanning at 3200 scans per second so it's extremely fast too. Here we're showing a stage but again this could be used inline. For example, we have customers that are using these on centerless grinding applications where it's measuring the part as soon as it comes off the line and you could have air purge covers on the emitter and receiver to keep the lenses clean.

Eddie: No, very interesting. So Mike, who needs this?

Mike: So really almost anyone could use this. I mean anyone who's measuring diameters, gaps, film, you know, we've had customers that have had returned parts up to fifty thousand dollars worth of parts and they bought the laser after they had the return of parts, so they could have kept that from happening if they had just spent a fraction of that and gotten the laser micrometer earlier on.

Eddie: Right, right. Well what other options are available?

Mike: So these are non-contact sensors. We also have our contact sensors. This is our LG100 and EJ Series, so really these are updated linear gauges and we have these modular displays and interfaces that you can use these with and these are designed to be built inline, you know for an inline system, and have interfaces that communicate with popular PLCs or to a computer. So here we're showing two linear gauges in a stand and a counter and the counter is adding the linear gauges together to measure the thickness directly and all of these counters and interfaces snap together and you can mount them onto DIN rail so they can easily be mounted into your control enclosures plus each counter has two inputs so you're saving a bit of space in your enclosure too. So the linear gauges have been updated so they're even more durable, fast, accurate and plus they can be a great upgrade from linear gauges from other indicators, LVDTs because of the long range. Also we have this free software now that you can use for both setup of parameters plus it gives you live readings of each individual linear gauge or calculations between linear gauges so these can really be used in all sorts of applications. We have one application where it was forming wire and they were using these linear gauges to compress the round, thick wire into a square cross section and they were verifying the form at every position after each press and since these are IP67 G rated, that means that they're dustproof plus the G means that you've got additional oil, you know, resistance to cutting fluids and oils. And since they're impact resistant and you have 50-million plus cycle bearings on these, that means that they are going to hold up in these harsh environments that you see a lot of times.

Patrick: A perfect inline solution, right Mike?

Eddie: Okay, so what are some of the key reasons why somebody would choose this type of system over let's say an indicator?

Mike: So it really comes down to speed, accuracy, interfaces. Again, we can communicate with PLCs so if you need something that's going to be beefier, that's going to hold up under harsh environments or going to be faster than standard indicators, give you a little bit more stroke, then linear gauges are the way to do it.

Eddie: Hey, no that makes sense and also let's make more sense of now that we have the data, what are we doing with it?

Mike: Sure. So we could save it in the software. You can save it as a csv file so you can go into Excel, you can go into other SPC softwares, you can go into these PLCs or you know minitab some other applications that they've used, so you've got a lot of different options to send this into other softwares or an SPC software like our MeasurLink software.

Eddie: Wonderful, wonderful. So we've covered hand tools, we've transitioned over to linear gauges as well as sensors but we're not done just yet. Patrick, why don't you lead us off in the discussion in regards to vision systems?

Patrick: Sure, absolutely Eddie. Well today we're going to go over the Quick Image Vision System. It's got a small footprint so it fits great on your desktop. It uses a telecentric lens to do 2D measurement faster and accurately.

Eddie: Okay, so let's say you're considering something like a profile projector. Why would we also consider a vision system?

Patrick: Yeah, this is think of this as an upgraded profile projector. So a lot of times when you're doing a high-end application, you might be looking at a high-end profile projector whereas you might be better off looking at the quick image. It's just an entry level vision system. The measurements are very similar, but you're gonna get more software options, better accuracy and more lighting options.

Eddie: Okay, well what would you say if the end user has concerns about measuring larger parts or fitting as many parts as they can on that table?

Patrick: Sure, so we got a really small part here. Let's call it a widget and I've got it up on the table. I'm using our one-click function. I'm bringing up the job and then pressing run and the software will find the part, figure out the orientation, and then start measuring its critical features. And as you can see, I'm throwing it up there, knocking it around and it's fighting all those individual parts that we need to measure. But let's say you have something bigger or maybe you're filling up the whole table with widgets here. So we're gonna, we can use our stitching function. As you can see, we're gonna measure the top left corner, click the button for the view, click the right button, click for the bottom right corner, and then the machine will orientate the table and stitch the whole part. So you can see either a full picture of the part, a larger part or maybe the full table of smaller parts.

Eddie: No, very impressive as well as accurate. So we've now captured this accurate data. Patrick, what are we doing with it?

Patrick: Absolutely. So this whole time that we've been making measurements, Mike has been doing his thing with the laser mic, I've been doing my thing with the smaller mics, and here with the QI we're collecting that data, we're sending it to our MeasurLink software so we can do some analysis later and cut down on inspection time. So what if we do this analysis then we find out, hey, we're good after every one out of every 100 parts? So instead of doing an inspection one out of 50, we're now doing it one out of every 100 parts, so we're cutting down our inspection time. We're also cutting down on our measurement time with the QI by just throwing the parts on the table and clicking run.

Eddie: Very, very impressive. Well, we appreciate the insight you've provided in these three segments. So we've covered the Mitutoyo hand tools as well as linear gauges and sensors and wrapping everything up, talking about the Vision System. So as we end our segment today, we're going to get a quick recap from Patrick. So hey Patrick, tell us a little bit about some final thoughts on everything that we've covered today.

Patrick: Sure Eddie. So we have over 8,000 skus here at Mitutoyo and it's not just about getting measurement, it's about getting good data and eliminating bad parts. That's what we do here at Mitutoyo.

Eddie: There we go and thank you so much for your insight and last, Mike, where can we get more information on not only the products that we've covered today but the other additional products that Mitutoyo offers the market?

Mike: Absolutely. You can go to our website at www.mitutoyo.com, you can contact us through our phone number, 888-Mitutoyo, or you can reach out to your local MSC sales rep and they can take care of you or they can contact us if they need to.

Eddie: All right. Thank you so much Patrick and thank you so much Mike for all the insight that you've provided today on all the different measurement tools and how we can utilize this data and thank you all for joining us for our latest episode of MSC's Tooling Up featuring Mitutoyo. 

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