Product Description
Renishaw M2 3 mm Ruby Ball Stylus - Tungsten Carbide Stem (A-5003-0041)
Straight Styli
The simplest form of stylus, incorporating highly spherical industrial ruby balls and a choice of stem material.
Ruby is an extremely hard material and hence stylus wear is minimized. It is also of low density, keeping tip mass to a minimum, which avoids unwanted probe triggers caused by machine motion or vibration.
Mounted on stems made from a range of materials - stainless steel, tungsten carbide, ceramic, and a specialized carbon fiber material, "Renishaw GF" - these simple ruby ball styli are suitable for most inspection applications.
The size of the ball and the EWL of the stylus chosen are dictated by the size of the feature to be inspected. However, keeping the stylus ball as large as possible and the stem as short as possible will ensure maximum ball/stem clearance, whilst providing a greater yet still rigid EWL. Using larger ruby balls also reduces the effect of the surface finish of the component being inspected.
Ruby Ball Material
The industry standard and the optimum stylus ball material for a vast majority of measurement applications, ruby is one of the hardest known materials. Synthetic ruby is 99% pure aluminum oxide, which is grown into crystals (or "boules") at 2000 deg C using the Verneuil process.
The boules are then cut and gradually machined into a highly spherical form. Ruby balls are exceptionally smooth on the surface, have great compressive strength and a high resistance to mechanical corrosion.
Very few applications exists where ruby is not the preferred ball material, however there are two applications where balls manufactured from other materials are recommended.
The first is for heavy-duty scanning applications on aluminum. Because the materials attract, a phenomenon known as "adhesive wear" can occur, which involves build up of aluminum from the surface onto the ball. A better ball material for such applications is silicon nitride.
The second is in heavy-duty scanning applications on cast iron. Interaction between the two materials can result in "abrasive wear" of the ruby ball surface. For such applications, zirconia balls are recommended.
Tungsten Carbide Stem Material
Tungsten carbide stems are best used for maximizijng stiffness with either smal stem diameters required for ball diameters of 1 mm and below, or lengths up to 50 mm. Beyond this, eight can become a problem and stiffness is lost due to deflection at the stem to body joint.
Please contact us if you require any styli with special ball materials. We can recommend the most suitable material for scanning different materials.
Part number: A-5003-0041
