Design and Material Construction of the Articulating Tubes of the FaroArm and Temperature Compensation
FARO designs and builds every FaroArm with one philosophy: The FaroArm should provide a constant baseline of measurement in any environment, regardless of temperature variations or working conditions. Because the working environment is a fraught with temperature changes, the FaroArm is in constant contact with working parts, and the demand for precise measurement is critical, every FaroArm is designed and built to maintain its accuracy under the widest variety of environmental conditions.
Lifetime Calibration
Given insight of the working environment demands, FaroArm engineers choose the best quality and rugged materials so that all FaroArms maintain their calibration throughout their lifetime, with the exception of catastrophic damage. This provides operators with the certainty that for every measurement taken, they do not have to factor in the calibration condition of the measurement device. It also means that for periodic measurements, the data is not skewed by calibration fluctuations.
Temperature Compensation
Every FaroArm has transducers located in the FaroArm that feed temperature data back to the main controller. Every point that the FaroArm takes is mathematically adjusted to compensate for changes in the FaroArm. This mathematical adjustment is part of Faro’s initial calibration routine and is permanent for the lifetime of each FaroArm. Since Faro’s main concern is to provide a constant baseline of measurement, temperature compensation is critical. This gives the operator much less to worry about in environments with dynamic temperatures. If the transducers indicate that the FaroArm is undergoing drastic changes in dimension due unstable temperatures, the operator is alerted to discontinue measurements, until the FaroArm stabilizes. With this alert, operators avoid failing hundreds of inspections because temperature deviation is changing measurement data.
USB FaroArms, Edge, Prime, Fusion, Platinum, Titanium, Quantum, Advantage
In the USB FaroArm models, the articulating tubes are not made of aluminum. To save weight, they are made of specially designed carbon fiber, covered with a thin layer of silver fiber material to give the FaroArm its distinctive look. This material does a great job of hiding minor scrapes and scratches. The joints themselves, however, are made of aluminum. While the joints comprise the smaller mass of the FaroArm, extensive testing, backed by 20 years of Metrology experience, has shown that to maintain true accuracy temperature changes must be accounted for. So, we still have transducers within the FaroArm for temperature compensation.
It is our dedication to provide reliable and consistent measurement data that drives every facet of FaroArm design and construction.
Serial FaroArm, Gold
Every Gold Serial FaroArm is made almost exclusively of aircraft grade aluminum. The reasons for this are two fold.
- Aircraft quality aluminum provides an extremely high strength-to-weight ratio. This means that all FaroArms can take the stresses and impacts that occur in day-to-day use, while maintaining the lightest weight possible.
- Aluminum has a very linear coefficient of expansion that can be compensated for throughout the temperature gradients present in most production environments.
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