The development of a high-speed spindle measurement system using a laser diode and a quadrants sensor

Reducing the manufacturing time is the trend of precision manufacturing, and the precision of a work-piece is very important for manufacturing industry. High-speed cutting is becoming more widely used and the high-speed spindle is a very important element, whose precision may affect the overall performance of high-speed cutting. Most of the studies on high-speed cutting are focused on the cutting force, the vibration of the spindle and the effects of the spindle's thermal expansion; however, the measurement of the high-speed spindle continues to use the conventional spindle measurement method.As with the measurement of the high-speed spindle, more strict demands are set on the dynamic balance of cutting tools and the bandwidth of the measurement systems when compared with common spindles. The capacitance displacement sensor has been employed for the spindle error test. The precision of the measurement system is limited by the reference (such as a master ball or a master cylinder). Also the capacitance sensor and the reference must be grounded together. This paper presents a simple spindle measurement system using a laser diode and a quadrants sensor, with accuracy up to 1 μm, within 300,000 rpm for various spindles. The system does not need any reference and it is easy to set up. This system can be applied to measure the spindle errors, the spindle speed and the spindle indexing.