Renishaw's XC100 Brings Laser Calibration to 0.4 ppm

Renishaw launched the XC100 environmental compensator on 16 September, showing it at IMTS in Chicago and AMB in Stuttgart. It replaces the XC-80 and supports 0.4 ppm linear laser measurement accuracy through real-time automatic wavelength correction.

Four inputs drive that correction: air temperature, air pressure, relative humidity and material temperature. The instrument works with the XL-80 laser interferometer and with the XM-60 and XM-600 multi-axis calibrators, and integrates with Renishaw's CARTO software. Sensor configurations are flexible, combining air and material sensors as the job requires, and the unit has a high-resolution LCD touchscreen and several mounting options.

Laurence Rosser, product manager at Renishaw, said the XC100 simplifies the process of precision laser calibration, and that combining real-time environmental monitoring with CARTO integration lets users be confident in their results even in changing conditions.

The physics behind the product explains why it matters. A laser interferometer measures in wavelengths, and the wavelength of light in air depends on the refractive index, which moves with temperature, pressure and humidity. Without compensation, a machine calibrated at eight in the morning and again after the shop has warmed up will produce two different answers, and neither is traceable in any useful sense. Material temperature matters for the same reason from the other direction: the workpiece and the machine structure expand, so a length measured at 26 degrees is not the length at 20.

Putting all four measurements into one instrument that talks directly to the calibration software is a small change in hardware and a large one in argument. It is the difference between a number you can defend and a discussion about the weather.