Tifco Gage & Gear relies on a “fast turn-around” for gage and gear manufacturing. Fast and accurate inspection is key to maintaining that capability, and Wenzel gear inspection equipment has been a valuable resource.
Several years ago Tifco Gage & Gear, a division of Delta Research Corporation was an exhibitor at the Gear Expo in Detroit. Like many exhibitors at trade shows, Tifco was looking for some new equipment as well. In this case, it was new gear inspection capability. Because all of the major gear inspection equipment manufacturers were exhibiting too, Bob Sakuta, president of Tifco selected a sample precision gear and took it to each of the manufacturer’s booths and asked them how fast could they program the gear and inspect it. Wenzel was the winner, and the winner by a fairly large margin. At that point, Mr. Sakuta ordered a new Wenzel WGT350.
Mr. Sakuta explains, “The Wenzel WGT350 is a dedicated 4-axis gear tester. All axes are made from natural Impala black granite, which we believe insures excellent thermal behavior, and no-wear air bearings on all linear axes and the rotary table to provide the ultimate in high-accuracy performance compared to the mechanical bearings used in all competitor’s machines. The hydrostatic rotary table with disengageable dirve allows a manual rotation of the table during part set-up which minimizes set-up time. The machine has a fully counterbalanced tailstock that can support longer gears, tools and shafts, typical of the types of products Tifco produces. Workpiece diameter capability is from 5 to 400mm with a measurable gear face width of 500mm. Gears up to 400-lbs can be inspected.”
Scott Sakuta, manager of the quality control department, adds, “The ease of programming of the WGT350 is really what sold me. Its database is based on Windows® technology and is extremely user-friendly. The old DOS based systems used by other gear inspection machine manufacturers are really ‘old school’ and not what today’s computer-savvy technicians like to use. The fact that the software allows workpiece data records to be linked to digital photos facilitates selection and positionally-accurate clamping, providing the user with quick and precise measuring results. Actually, we have been able to program and inspect gears in half the time of our older inspection equipment.”
Scott Sakuta also adds, “We initially discovered that the appearance, form and interpretation of the Wenzel gear inspection reports were a bit disconcerting to our customer base which for years has been used to seeing only M&M gear inspection reports. As a result, we worked very diligently with Xspect Solutions and Wenzel software people to develop a report look that was very similar to what the industry was accustomed to.”
Just recently, Tifco added new capability in their quality Control Department with the addition of a new Wenzel LH GMM (Gear Measuring Machine). “We began to see our aerospace, automotive, marine and agricultural customer’s needs expanding as their supplier bases began to constrict,” Bob Sakuta notes. “We wanted to be in position to provide additional value-added services which could include different types of shafts, housings and larger gears that previously we had not provided. We had all the manufacturing capability that would be required; we just needed more flexible inspection capability for these types of parts. For that reason we purchased the Wenzel bridge-type Model 6.7.5 GMM. This GMM uses the same gear controller, imbedded rotary table, and software that are used on the Wenzel WGT range. Now, not only can we measure larger gears up to 600 mm diameter, but we also can measure other rotation-symmetrical parts as well as a broad range of prismatic parts. This type of inspection machine allows us to perform production monitoring, prototype development or reverse engineering. The vertical GMM machine design, compared to traditional gear checkers, is more convenient for measuring internal gears.”
Bob Sakuta concludes, “We continue to have a very good experience working with Xspect Solutions on our CMM issues over the years. We have developed the same type of long-term customer/supplier relationship with them that we like to have with our own customers. We’re confident that if there is something new and beneficial to our companies with respect to measuring, Xspect Solutions with their high quality line of Wenzel equipment will bring it to our attention. We now have three Wenzel machines, a CMM, a WGT350 Gear Inspection Machine and an LH GMM at our two plants as well as an OpenDMIS upgrade for our older Federal CMM. We are extremely pleased with their operation and performance.”
Xspect Solutions, Inc. headquartered in Wixom, Michigan, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wenzel GmbH of Germany. Xspect Solutions is the Number 3 supplier of CMMs in the North American metrology market including; new Wenzel CMMs, and is the world’s largest supplier of pre-owned CMM equipment. Xspect Solutions also supplies new Wenzel CMMs, new LH GMMs as well as OpenDMIS® software to the North American markets.
