Product News: Wenzel Geartec Exhibits Hybrid CMM, GMM at Gear Expo

Designed specifically to measure the large gears and pinions used in the wind energy industry.

Published: Monday, September 14, 2009 - 14:01

(Xspect Solutions Inc.: Wixcom, MI) -- Wenzel Geartec will be introducing a unique new hybrid gear measuring machine at the Gear Expo (www.gearexpo.com/About-Gear-Expo.html) in Indianapolis, Indiana, Sept. 15–18, 2009.

“Wenzel has developed this machine to specifically meet the demand of the wind energy gear manufacturing community where large internal and external gears and pinions require highly accurate measuring as well as traditional CMM measuring of prismatic parts," says Keith Mills, president of Xspect Solutions Inc., the wholly owned subsidiary of Wenzel GmbH of Germany. "Traditional gear inspection machines are typically mechanical bearing devices with horizontal arms holding the scanning probe. To simply expand this type of machine design concept, that was originally developed to measure 500 mm diameter gears, and apply it to 2,500 mm diameter gears, doesn’t work. For that reason, Wenzel has developed this new hybrid machine design that uses an all granite, air bearing structure, with a bridge type construction so the probe can provide a much higher level of dynamics and scanning performance with no mechanical bearing wear over time. In addition, the machine requires no special foundation.”

The Hybrid LHGT 2600 machine in figure 1 has a prismatic measuring volume of 1,500 mm x 2,500 mm x 1,200 mm with an embedded hydrostatic rotary table flush-mounted inside an Impala black granite machine base. The table and fixture can measure and support gears up to 2,600 mm diameter and weighing up to 20,000 lb. A removable tailstock column can also be mounted on the base to measure and support pinion gear shafts up to 1,900 mm in length, as seen in figure 2. The machine uses Renishaw SP80 scanning technology.

“We have currently sold three of these new LHGT 2600 hybrid machines, one in Europe and two here in the United States,” adds Mills.

Figure 1: New Wenzel Geartec LHGT 2600 Hybrid CMM and GMM measuring machines for the wind energy industry.

Figure 2: Removeable tailstock column is shown measuring large pinion gear shaft.

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About The Author

WENZEL Group

The WENZEL Group GmbH & Co. KG is one of the leading manufacturers of metrology solutions. The wide range of WENZEL products include solutions in the fields of coordinate measuring machines, gear metrology, computed tomography, design, die making, and reverse engineering. The main customers are in the automotive and aerospace industries, mechanical engineering, electrical motor manufacturing, and subcontractors to these sectors. The company has 16 subsidiaries worldwide and sales and service partners in more than 50 countries.

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