EoW November 2009

Testing & measuring

Analysis of cable insulation and sheathing SETIC’s MPE 120 high precision slicing/fending-off machine is specially designed to cut and shave off smooth test pieces of insulation and sheathing material. The process allows accurate and repeatable measurement conforming to international standard

IEC 811-1-1. Compared to ground samples – involving micro irregularities – productivity is much higher as several preparation steps to obtain a precise cable section are avoided. Characteristics of the material can be reduced, allowing the use of cheaper compounds. The strip to be shaved is placed between two feeding rollers, which push the product against a surgical blade. The shaving thickness is adjusted through a precision screw, allowing a final strip from 0.6mm to 2mm thickness with perfect parallel and smooth, mark free, faces. Precision is said to be better than 0.05mm. SETIC-Gauder Group – France Fax : +33 477 71 1085

Email : setic@gaudergroup.com Website : www.gaudergroup.com Manual spring tester The increasing use of powerful miniaturised mechanical and electro-mechanical units is influencing product development in many sectors, including the automobile industry and medical technology. Springs used for these applications are also becoming ever smaller, but must still deliver precision and reliability, placing greater demands on testing technology. To meet this challenge, Zwick has developed a new high-precision spring-testing instrument featuring fast, easy operation. This hand-operated spring tester records spring compression stress-strain characteristics in full, with no need to stop at the measuring points. Load and deflection are recorded synchronously. Intensive development work has created a system that is said to guarantee highly accurate test results. One important factor in this is mechanical compensation of load cell deformation, ensuring maximum precision in deflection measurement under load (resolution 0.2µm). The reference line of the deflection measuring system lies along the same axis as the spring length being measured, practically eliminating the length measurement error. Other important factors in providing highly accurate measurement are the extremely stiff load frame and load application aligned to the specimen centreline, resulting in minimal elasticity through the entire test arrangement. Integrated mechanical overload protection of the load cell provides reliable damage prevention, avoiding tester downtime and load cell replacement and calibration costs. The machine possesses three adjustable mechanical limit switch stops for starting position, pre-stress length and minimum permissible test length. The new spring tester is suitable for production line use and in design and development, while standard interfaces enable connection of additional measuring equipment such as dimensional measuring devices. The addition of the proven testXpert® II testing software to the manually-operated spring tester produces an ideal package for testing small springs and ensures simple, quick, safe and reliable testing. The testXpert® II Test Program is ideally adapted to the requirements of spring testing. Contents include integrated histogram and statistics functions, pre-defined specific results, online graph and test result recording plus optional statistical process control (SPC) functions, while flexible, efficient interfaces allow testXpert® II to communicate with an organisation’s IT infrastructure. Zwick GmbH – Germany Fax : +49 7305 10200 Email : info@zwickroell.eu Website : www.zwick.de The SETIC MPE 120 ▲ ▲

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EuroWire – November 2009