Heavy CMM Fixture Loading Methods

If you're going to be using a crane to place parts or fixtures onto your surface plate you will want a load positioner!

https://permadur.com/product-category/load-positioners/

They use a hydraulic piston to slowly lower your part so you don't damage anything.

I honestly didn't know about those. That sounds like a great tool.

What gets me is that it is a big flat part with 0.20in profiles callouts on the perimeter - huge tolerances. It is being cut with a water jet. Seems like a job for a portable CMM like an arm or a laser tracker, but we don't have anything like that.

When I worked at a calibration company we had a layout job come in to measure a school bus frame. Much too large to measure on the CMM. We also had a customer that would lend us their Faro Arm to measure their parts (seats frames for Mercedes. Probably the most interesting job I've done to date) and program it for their team.

Long story short we just so happened to delay one job and expedite the other one and they fell on the same 2 week period. Both parts were measured and we didn't have to buy an arm.

Thanks for all of the suggestions guys. We don't have room for an overhead crane and we would only use it 20 times a year at most. 40 if you include taking it off too. So i think louisd may be the winner.

No... and yes.

When that machine was purchased, a Barry Air Level / Vibration damping system was bought with it. Several years ago, when one of the air bladders sprung a leak, maintenance claimed that they could no longer get replacements, so, no more air level system, but it was still sitting on the 6 cans that made up the system. When we moved into the new lab, I positioned the cans where I wanted them, where I figured they would do the most good, basically, 3 at the back, but 1/4 in from the edge and 3 at the front, also 1/4 in from the edge. This has let the table re-flatten itself in the 3 yeas since the move (yes, part of my in-house checks includes measuring the table). ANYWAY, those 6 cans are now basically solid legs under the table. I put sheet metal on the table above those legs and put the load on them, so there is NO load on the table at all, it is all straight-line down to the thick isolation pad concrete pour under the machine.

As in, I get a free chicken dinner?

Sure thing! Meet me at Chick-fil-A this Sunday.

lol, only a 1700 mile drive from Phoenix to Indiana... even if that place WAS open on sundays

if your part is relatively small, Grainger offers high lift pallet jacks and stackers. $1 to 3k for a manual machine.

I have a half ton stationary swing arm crane for one of my machines. It looks like an engine hoist on a pole about a foot to the side of the machine. I bring in the item on a cart, park it in front of the machine, swing the arm around, pick up the item and swing it onto the machine. Works great for what I need.

That makes sense - directly supporting under the load like that. Very resourceful!