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Spherometers
The TRIOPTICS Spherometers are in use in hundreds of optical companies and laboratories
worldwide. These spherometers have become an industry standard for ultra-accurate radius measurement
and calibration of test glasses. Their long term accuracy and automated features make them the preferred
instruments for both laboratory and production environments.
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Super Spherotronic
for high-precision measurements
Super-Spherotronic is an automatic three ball contacting spherometer designed to meet the highest
test plate calibration requirements. Being the most accurate instrument of our line of spherometers,
Super-Spherotronic can measure the radius of curvature to an accuracy of 0.01%. To ensure that the
highest available accuracy values of radius measurement are obtained, all Super-Spherotronic components
have been optimized and perfected so that residual errors are negligible:
The mainframe components locating the probe are made of massive stainless steel, hardened and
fine ground on machine-tools to the highest achievable accuracy. Concentricity of mainframe components
to the probe is less than 1 micron (0.00004“).
The spherometer rings represent one of the key components of the Super-Spherotronic including
an incredible amount of work to eliminate any possible error source. Made of heat-treated high
quality stainless steel, the rings are machined on high accuracy grinding machine-tools and finally
fine-lapped. An ingenious design combined with a special electro-erosion procedure allows the ball
and the ball location site to be matched with the highest accuracy. Each ring is delivered with a
calibration certificate. The measuring accuracy is directly traceable to NIST standard.
The supporting balls are also concentrically positioned with an extreme accuracy of less than
1 micron (0.00004“). This highly accurate positioning of the ring balls is an essential and distinctive
feature of the Super-Spherotronic, ensuring excellent repeatability. To avoid any thermal and mechanical
deformation, the supporting balls are made of tungsten carbide (an extremely hard alloy), while the probe
centre is an ultra-precision ruby ball. This completely eliminates any errors introduces by metallic probe
centres used in other spherometers.
The probe itself is a high precision Heidenhain encoder, specifically selected for this use, having
a total systematic and random error of less than 0.2 microns (0.000008“).
The test plates used for calibration of the instrument are manufactured to high quality standards
to an accuracy better than 1/10 wave for sphericity. The test plates are certified by NIST of USA, so
that the accuracy of Super-Spherotronic is directly traceable to international standards.
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Ultra Spherotronic - unsurpassed accuracy for test plate calibration
The Ultra-Spherotronic, the latest addition to our line of automatic spherometers, is the response to increased
accuracy requirements in measurement of radii of curvature of optical components. The heart of the new spherometer
is a special linear encoder featuring the highest measurement accuracy available.
Under constant temperature conditions the absolute measurement error of the linear encoder is less than 0.05µm. The
resolution is selectable : 0.01/0.05/0.1µm.
The typical high quality mechanical components and the stability of TRIOPTICS spherometers have been further
optimized and perfected during the development of the Ultra-Spherotronic.
The probe is a ruby ball centred precisely on the encoder spindle. The use of a ruby ball probe excludes the
accidental damage of valuable test plates during measurement. The precise centring of the ruby ball is a key
factor in obtaining the high repeatability of the Ultra-Spherotronic.
When accuracy really counts, there is no replacement for Ultra-Spherotronic: the unsurpassed accuracy of the
linear encoder combined with the high quality of the mechanics leads to new levels of accuracy of radius measurement.
Depending on the diameter of the spherometer ring used, a radius measurement accuracy of approx. 0.005%
and a repeatability of 0.001% are achievable.
To further increase the operational comfort, probe travel has been motorized. By simply pressing a button, the
spindle of the linear encoder can be smoothly moved up and down. Moreover the contact force of the probe is
always constant, thus contributing to superior repeatability of the measurement results. To adapt to different
applications, the required contact force can be selected by simply switching a three-position selector.
The travel of the linear encoder has been increased to 60mm. This enables a significant increase in the range
of measurable radius of curvature.
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SpheroCompact
SpheroCompact is an extremely accurate and easy to use instrument designed for sagittal measurement of both concave and convex
surfaces.
It is the first hand held spherometer with a high precision linear encoder which features bright digital readout, micron
resolution and excellent absolute accuracy.
The calibrated rings have precision ground reference surfaces and are machined of high quality stainless steel. Ultra-precision
RUBY BALLS guarantee highest hardness and unsurpassed thermal stability. The deviation from sphericity is less than 1/10 of a
micron.
The diameter of each ring is Certified and the instrument is calibrated using test plates with Certified Radius, traceable to
NIST. The calibration is done for both concave and convex spherical surfaces. The radius difference between the concave and
convex test plates used in calibration is smaller than lambda/10.
Easily removable rings of different diameters increase the versatility of the instrument and feature a very large measuring
range covering almost all applications in optical manufacturing. The Spherocompact can be used either as a hand-held instrument
to take measurements directly on the machine or as a stand-alone instrument in the laboratory.
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