Carl-zeiss-stiftung, Heidenheim/brenz

Carl-zeiss-stiftung

Peter Aehnelt

Eckhard Enderle

A probe head for a multiple-coordinate measuring machine defines the at-rest or zero position of a movable probe-pin holder part with respect to a relatively fixed housing part of the head, by employing a flexible coupling between a circular base of the probe-pin holder and a circular reference surface of the housing. The flexible coupling comprises a stacked plurality of interconnected flat disks or rings of spring material, one ring on top of the next, and their interconnections are at sector regions which are at progressively staggered, angularly offset locations, from one to the next pair of sector-connected adjacent surfaces in the stack. In the at rest condition, all rings of the coupling are axially compressed, with their flat surfaces in direct axial abutment with each other, as well as with the fixed part and the movable part of the probe head. Provision is made for switched entry of measuring-machine coordinates as of the instant of probe-pin contact with a workpiece, and for automatically avoiding entry of measuring-machine coordinates that are not based on such probe-pin contact.

Probe head of the switching type

The invention concerns a probe head of the so-called measuring type with scales which supply signals proportional to the position of a probe pin in its deflected state. A probe-pin carrier is the movable part of the probe head, being mounted indirectly on at least three intermediate bodies which, in their turn, are guided linearly in a fixed or housing part of the probe head. As a result of the symmetrical arrangement of the linear guides and the identical mass of intermediate bodies, like inertial responses characterize probe deflection in all directions in space. The workpiece-contacting force is, therefore, independent of coordinate direction in a dynamic operation of the probe head, as in the course of a continuous scan of a workpiece profile.

Probe head for a coordinate-measuring machine

Electrical-lead connections between stationary and movable parts of a probe head are rendered virtually insensitive to stress by wrapped development of the lead connections along the length of a spring connection between the stationary and movable parts.

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Oberkochen, Germany

Peter Aehnelt