Any thoughts as to the benifits of Romer over Faro? My shop is thinking of getting a portable CMM and I'd like to get some imput as to which you think is better. Also do you have any suggestions in gereral for what to be careful about with portable CMMs?
The Faro Arm is pretty good, We got one about 2 years ago. My biggest fault with the Cam 2 software is that it doesn't have feature recognition. Other than that it is pretty user friendly. We have only had one issue with ours, the encoder went out on one of the axis', they turnaround time for repair was about 2 weeks. There are 2 other companies in this area that we do work for and both of them have had trouble with encoders going bad. As for the Romer, I played around with an old one at a customers place once but to compare it to the newer model Faro wouldn't be comparing apples to apples.
If the need arose for another portable I would definetly look at Faro again, but wouldn't limit myself to that choice.
We have/been using a Faro arm (Silver)with PcDmis and have found it very useful out on the shop floor for jigs, dies etc.Was purchased about 4 years ago and doesn't have the Infinite Rotation that the Romer has now.
Version 4.0 of PC-DMIS has made a nice interface and new algorithms for use with manual arms. Been training and supporting on the Romer for a while, a very nice product. Wireless is awesome. Also remember, you can by Romer and PC-DMIS from the same company, and get equally supported by both.
we recently bought a faro gage arm. as far as using it if it used in the way it was designed for it works great. if you are normally used to running PcDmis i would advise against the Faro software it is too limiting and the tech support we get fro Hexagon is 10 times better than at Faro. Just one programmers observation. i would also advise doing a correlation study between the arm and your normal cmm and see the difference it would have on using it in the manufacturing area. hope this helps Scott Bean
Thanks for the replies. We did get the Faro. I haven't even had a chance to touch it yet, we're so busy right now. I would like to do a correlation between the Faro and one of our standard CMMs.
I didn't get a chance to do the correlation study yet, but the other guy who is learning it checked a 1/2 inch gage ring and found it within a few tenths. I want to check some distances betwen holes or something like that. We are severly under staffed here.
We are using a FARO arm with Geomagic software (Studio & Qualify). We did a correlation of a scan to the same part run on the CMM - very close, <0.02mm.
This may not be close enough for your parts, but since we make and measure raw sand castings, this is fine for us.
Ya, with all the issues I already have with PC-DMIS though, I'm not too excited about getting it for a Farogage. Not to mention Hexagon is probably charging an arm and a leg for the software.
Good Morning,
Contrary to sales pitches, the Faro is not so indestructable. The scales or encoders are glass and fragile. Take caution to not let the arm bump any hard surfaces. We are down due to an encoder problem and I spoke with the techs and found that the encoders are glass and to repair them, is to have the problem section replaced.
