does anyone know anything about the Equator? my company wants to buy them, just need some feed back on them good or bad and do they really work as good as they say?
I worked with one for a couple of years when they were kinda new. A 2012ish model. So my knowledge may be a little dated. My experience was that it was a real pain to work with - I'll explain in a bit.
The concept of the machine is just fine. You take any production part and call it a master. You measure that master on a traditional CMM to generate a .CAL file. That file stores the measured XYZ coordinates of every hit of every feature measured. You can then use that program and the .CAL file on the Equator to measure the part to "calibrate" the machine to measure that part. It basically comps every single point that is measured on the master to match the values from the .CAL file. Then you can measure production parts. The machine is "re-calibrated' at regular intervals to account for environmental changes and general drift of any nature. It is a great machine for measuring lots and lots of the exact same part. Once it is set up it is really easy for anyone to operate with a nice icon based interface.
It may seem a little wonky, but there are a lot of benefits to that system:
The machine is way cheaper than a traditional CMM. Especially considering that it comes with an SP25 analog probe. Prove holders for that probe are way cheaper than individual TTP modules.
The machine itself does not need annual calibrations. The mastering process takes care of any machine errors, so that can save a lot of money.
It comes with a 6 port probe changer built in.
You rarely need to calibrate the probes because the mastering process accounts for that. I would only do it monthly or when a stylus broke.
Maintenance is easy. If something is broke you Repair By Exchange (RBE) whatever unit is broken (They send you a new or recently repaired unit and you return the broken on in the same box). Great for big repairs, overpriced for small simple repairs.
Parts can be measured in very warm or cold environments because the mastering process accounts for any thermal drift in both the machine and the parts being measured.
The machine is crazy fast and just plain fun to watch. In my case it was able to measure a part in half the time of our traditional CMMs.
The machine is small, light, and mobile. It works just fine on a sturdy rolling cart.
It has some built in SPC functions like run charts.
The machine uses a handy fixture plate system with a repeatable mounting. You can have several plates all set up for different parts and just swap them out when measuring different parts. But, I guess you can implement that on any CMM, so it's only so cool
The issues:
This may have changed, but when I used the machine it had a limited on the OS. The machine itself operates on Linux and runs a stripped down version of windows virtually on top of that. You have very little access to the machine's file system and can't add applications or change any registry settings. Putting it on a network is a real pain and a security risk. The best way to use it is to load measuring routines on it is with a USB drive. Then print the reports on paper from a printer connected directly to it, but that may not work so well depending on your documentation requirements. Where I worked they wanted all the measurement data stored electronically, so I had to program the equator to send the report to a network folder that IT walled off just for that machine. Then they set up the server to check for files in that location once a minute and send that to a folder that was accessible to the rest of the network. That is also how we handled printing (the report was also sent to a print server) because the company was too cheap to buy a printer for just that machine.
I'll repeat that some of this may have changed buy now. Renishaw was doing a good job of supporting the machine and providing updates to the software. The machine was way better in 2016 when I last used it, vs 2012ish when we first got it. I'm sure they worked out even more bugs since then.
The system works best if you have a CMM running Modus, the same CMM software used on the Equator. You can make it work with PC-DMIS, but you are then limited to the feature that both systems support. What I ended up doing is programming in PC-DMIS using only measured features (no auto-features), then exported the program as a DMIS file, then tweaked that DMIS program to work on the Equator. There was a script I could run to make the .CAL file. It worked, but wouldn't support the scanning features. Scanning could be done, but I had to program a scan path on both machines in two different languages that matched exactly - ended up being more trouble than it was worth.
One thing to note about this is that Renishaw offers a service to create measuring routines for you and they will measure your master parts on their very high precision machines to generate the .CAL files. You loose a lot of control doing that, but it could be convenient and save you money in the long run if you don't have a machine running Modus.
I should also mention that Renishaw started to introduce a new way of measuring simple parts without using a .CAL file. It involved measuring a part on a standard CMM to just get measurement data. Then you write a new program on the Equator and key in the deviations from the measurement results from the other machine. Instead of comping the deviation for each point, it comps on the feature level. That works OK for size and location features, but not for any sort of form measurements like circularity, profile, straightness, flatness, etc.
The machine runs Modus. I know I already mentioned this, but it bares repeating. It is a major step backwards if you are used to PC-DMIS. I often found it easier to edit program in a text editor than doing it in Modus. All the core measuring features are there, but everything just takes a lot longer to do.
You have to store master parts for each program. That means you need to store and protect them. If the parts are made from something that easily rusts, you need to watch for that. You also need to make sure the master parts don't get lost in with the production parts (I treated all our master parts with gun blueing so they look different).
If the master part gets damaged, it will affect the measuring accuracy. I would always worry about a machine operator dropping a master part and not telling me. The way to assure that this wasn't a problem was to inspect the 1st piece of each work order on both our standard CMM and the Equator to make sure the results were similar. For small work orders it wasn't much of a time savings.
Part revisions drove me nuts. Where I worked with the Equator, the company went through just about the whole alphabet when it came to revising some parts. Some changes were small and didn't require a new master, but often I needed to get a new master part and spent hours going through the process of updating two programs, generating a .CAL file, and setting up the scripts I needed to use store the reports on the network.
The machine is no good for anything except measuring production parts. It is no good for new parts until you get a part that you can use as a master and go through the trouble of creating a program for it and generating a .CAL file. It is no good for prototype work. It is no good for parts with short runs. You should only consider the Equator for measuring lots and lots of the same parts.
Wow, that got a lot wordier that I thought it would . Hope some of that helps . Forgive me for not checking all that for grammatical errors.
I worked with one for a couple of years when they were kinda new. A 2012ish model. So my knowledge may be a little dated. My experience was that it was a real pain to work with - I'll explain in a bit.
The concept of the machine is just fine. You take any production part and call it a master. You measure that master on a traditional CMM to generate a .CAL file. That file stores the measured XYZ coordinates of every hit of every feature measured. You can then use that program and the .CAL file on the Equator to measure the part to "calibrate" the machine to measure that part. It basically comps every single point that is measured on the master to match the values from the .CAL file. Then you can measure production parts. The machine is "re-calibrated' at regular intervals to account for environmental changes and general drift of any nature. It is a great machine for measuring lots and lots of the exact same part. Once it is set up it is really easy for anyone to operate with a nice icon based interface.
It may seem a little wonky, but there are a lot of benefits to that system:
The machine is way cheaper than a traditional CMM. Especially considering that it comes with an SP25 analog probe. Prove holders for that probe are way cheaper than individual TTP modules.
The machine itself does not need annual calibrations. The mastering process takes care of any machine errors, so that can save a lot of money.
It comes with a 6 port probe changer built in.
You rarely need to calibrate the probes because the mastering process accounts for that. I would only do it monthly or when a stylus broke.
Maintenance is easy. If something is broke you Repair By Exchange (RBE) whatever unit is broken (They send you a new or recently repaired unit and you return the broken on in the same box). Great for big repairs, overpriced for small simple repairs.
Parts can be measured in very warm or cold environments because the mastering process accounts for any thermal drift in both the machine and the parts being measured.
The machine is crazy fast and just plain fun to watch. In my case it was able to measure a part in half the time of our traditional CMMs.
The machine is small, light, and mobile. It works just fine on a sturdy rolling cart.
It has some built in SPC functions like run charts.
The machine uses a handy fixture plate system with a repeatable mounting. You can have several plates all set up for different parts and just swap them out when measuring different parts. But, I guess you can implement that on any CMM, so it's only so cool
The issues:
This may have changed, but when I used the machine it had a limited on the OS. The machine itself operates on Linux and runs a stripped down version of windows virtually on top of that. You have very little access to the machine's file system and can't add applications or change any registry settings. Putting it on a network is a real pain and a security risk. The best way to use it is to load measuring routines on it is with a USB drive. Then print the reports on paper from a printer connected directly to it, but that may not work so well depending on your documentation requirements. Where I worked they wanted all the measurement data stored electronically, so I had to program the equator to send the report to a network folder that IT walled off just for that machine. Then they set up the server to check for files in that location once a minute and send that to a folder that was accessible to the rest of the network. That is also how we handled printing (the report was also sent to a print server) because the company was too cheap to buy a printer for just that machine.
I'll repeat that some of this may have changed buy now. Renishaw was doing a good job of supporting the machine and providing updates to the software. The machine was way better in 2016 when I last used it, vs 2012ish when we first got it. I'm sure they worked out even more bugs since then.
The system works best if you have a CMM running Modus, the same CMM software used on the Equator. You can make it work with PC-DMIS, but you are then limited to the feature that both systems support. What I ended up doing is programming in PC-DMIS using only measured features (no auto-features), then exported the program as a DMIS file, then tweaked that DMIS program to work on the Equator. There was a script I could run to make the .CAL file. It worked, but wouldn't support the scanning features. Scanning could be done, but I had to program a scan path on both machines in two different languages that matched exactly - ended up being more trouble than it was worth.
One thing to note about this is that Renishaw offers a service to create measuring routines for you and they will measure your master parts on their very high precision machines to generate the .CAL files. You loose a lot of control doing that, but it could be convenient and save you money in the long run if you don't have a machine running Modus.
I should also mention that Renishaw started to introduce a new way of measuring simple parts without using a .CAL file. It involved measuring a part on a standard CMM to just get measurement data. Then you write a new program on the Equator and key in the deviations from the measurement results from the other machine. Instead of comping the deviation for each point, it comps on the feature level. That works OK for size and location features, but not for any sort of form measurements like circularity, profile, straightness, flatness, etc.
The machine runs Modus. I know I already mentioned this, but it bares repeating. It is a major step backwards if you are used to PC-DMIS. I often found it easier to edit program in a text editor than doing it in Modus. All the core measuring features are there, but everything just takes a lot longer to do.
You have to store master parts for each program. That means you need to store and protect them. If the parts are made from something that easily rusts, you need to watch for that. You also need to make sure the master parts don't get lost in with the production parts (I treated all our master parts with gun blueing so they look different).
If the master part gets damaged, it will affect the measuring accuracy. I would always worry about a machine operator dropping a master part and not telling me. The way to assure that this wasn't a problem was to inspect the 1st piece of each work order on both our standard CMM and the Equator to make sure the results were similar. For small work orders it wasn't much of a time savings.
Part revisions drove me nuts. Where I worked with the Equator, the company went through just about the whole alphabet when it came to revising some parts. Some changes were small and didn't require a new master, but often I needed to get a new master part and spent hours going through the process of updating two programs, generating a .CAL file, and setting up the scripts I needed to use store the reports on the network.
The machine is no good for anything except measuring production parts. It is no good for new parts until you get a part that you can use as a master and go through the trouble of creating a program for it and generating a .CAL file. It is no good for prototype work. It is no good for parts with short runs. You should only consider the Equator for measuring lots and lots of the same parts.
Wow, that got a lot wordier that I thought it would . Hope some of that helps . Forgive me for not checking all that for grammatical errors.
. Hope some of that helps 
. Forgive me for not checking all that for grammatical errors.
