Mahr Federal recently introduced a new addition to its growing family of optical shaft measurement systems. Competitively priced and designed to provide fast, accurate, fully automatic measurement of smaller shafts and turned parts directly on the shop floor, the MarShaftT Scope 250 plus features an accurate matrix camera with four million pixels. The system measures parts up to 250 mm in length and 40 mm in diameter with accuracy that is previously unknown in this market segment. It features an MPE (Maximum Permissible Error) of less than 1.5 microns + L/40 when measuring diameter and  3 microns + L/125 when measuring length.

“The MarShaft Scope 250 plus is a very compact, attractively designed system that provides out-of-the-box functionality,” said Patrick N. Nugent, vice president metrology systems for Mahr Federal. “It is extremely easy to use, and very fast. In our lab here in Providence, we measured 28 features on a sample shaft in less than ten seconds, and a customer part with only 7 required features in less than three seconds.”

One key to the system's speed is the high-resolution CMOS matrix camera with a live image field of view of 40 x 24 mm, enabling it to capture an entire part diameter in a single view. With Z-axis positioning speeds of up to 200 mm/second and an image acquisition rate of over 120 images per second, measurements are performed faster than the blink of an eye. Zoom functions allow measurement of the smallest details such as chamfers and radii, which can be difficult and in some cases even impossible to test, with conventional measuring methods.

MarShaft Scope 250 plus can be operated entirely on the integrated touch screen, or via a keyboard and mouse if desired. MarWinR-based EasyShaftT software enables the precision measurement of diameters, lengths, contour features, and form and position tolerances in accordance with standards, and offers many new evaluation and documentation options, all with an easy-to-use intuitive user interface. EasyShaft runs on the WindowsR operating system and is compatible with other Windows applications and printers.

The touchscreen gives direct access to positioning, programming, measurement and documentation, including the use of “swipe functions.” The user interface helps keep track of everything users need to know, and many functions, such as loading measuring results or adding feature measurements, can be activated simply by clicking on obvious icons.