All the buzz these days is about laser micrometers and vision systems. If you visit a tradeshow or get any online advertisement, many companies are promoting these measuring methods.
It seems that everyone is interested in noncontact gaging these days. Laser scanners, structured light, confocal chromatic sensors, and CCD cameras have all made significant advances in the last decade, leaving us to wonder if this century old technology is still useful today.
Air gages have been reliable tools for more than 70 years, providing accurate and repeatable measures of diameter, depth, parallelism, taper and flatness.
Air gaging allows you to measure many jobs faster, more conveniently, and more accurately than by using other gaging methods. In the measurement of hole conditions, air gaging is unsurpassed for speed and accuracy, while in checking any dimensional characteristic, air offers sufficient magnification and reliability to measure tolerances well beyond the scope of mechanical gages.
Today most food chains are learning to cater to their customers. Whether it’s burgers or subs, you can get them made exactly to order and “have it your way.” Successful and growing chains understand this.
In recent years, we have seen an upward trend of higher production manufacturers wanting to integrate their air gaging quality checks from a stand-alone, outside of machine device where the operator is performing a manual check, to an automated in-process gage.
It is perfectly natural that machinists should have an affinity for mechanical gages. To a machinist, the working of a mechanical gage is both straightforward and pleasing.