Founded in 1989 and headquartered in Coalville, Leicestershire, CMS Cepcor is a leading supplier of aftermarket crusher spares, manganese-steel wear liners and other equipment to the mining, aggregate production and associated industries worldwide. In February this year (2024), the company took delivery of its first coordinate measuring machine (CMM), greatly enhancing quality control of the products it manufactures or refurbishes to tight tolerances. Having a nominal inspection volume of 3,000 x 1,500 x 1,000 mm, the CMM is an Altera M built by UK firm LK Metrology at its factory in Castle Donington, Derbyshire.
Previously, CMS Cepcor had been using a pair of manually-operated, portable, 6-axis arms with a 2.5-metre and a 3-metre reach respectively to check cast-iron, cast or forged steel, and bronze components by touch-probing them. This was a lengthy process, as well as being insufficiently precise to measure some parts without difficulty. For example, it was challenging to inspect bearing seats whose tolerances are from 50 down to 30 microns total, shafts up to half a metre in diameter which need to be accurate to within 30 to 20 microns, and various features on housings that can be tied up to half that tolerance. Consequently there was a need to use micrometers and other traditional manual gauges to measure those dimensions, which was even more time-consuming and subject to inconsistencies depending on which operator had been allocated the job. Additionally, some parts up to 400 mm in diameter by 700 mm long have eccentric tapers with drawing tolerances down to as little as 15 arcseconds, which were problematic to check by hand.
