Hutian Feng

An automatic measuring method and system using a light curtain for the thread profile of a ballscrew

An automatic non-contact measuring system for the thread profile of a ballscrew was developed and integrated using a light curtain, a high-accuracy linear encoder and a motion platform for the measuring stand. Firstly, data points from the thread profile of a ballscrew were collected by the measuring system and data partitioning was performed. Then, the proposed method was used to calculate the most important geometric errors of the thread profile, such as effective diameter, thread pitch, ball track runout and ball track cross-section error. Finally, the proposed system and method was verified for its good performance with acceptable accuracy and reliability. Compared with original measuring methods, the non-contact optical measuring system was capable of measuring most common features of the ballscrew with required accuracy, and was not limited to size and length of the ballscrew.