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Advanced Motion & Controls Develops Diamond Measuring Device.
Advanced Motion & Controls Ltd. designed and produced this diamond gauging device specifically for a diamond manufacturer located in the far northern regions of Canada (approximately 500Km from the Arctic Circle). The task was to develop an inexpensive solution to measure the outside diameter of square and round diamonds with an accuracy to within 1 micron. Other commercially available units would be considerably more money for the same functionality, and cycle times are typically longer than what was achieved.
As SMAC is known for “The ability to do work and verify its accuracy at the same time” as well as their high cycle times, it seemed to be the perfect fit for this application.
Operation of the unit:
The diamond is loaded into the device by placing it on top of the vertical hollow shaft of the SMAC rotary linear actuator, which is connected to a vacuum pump, securing the diamond. Via software, the user now defines the basic shape of the diamond by selecting square or round. Based on that selection the machine now starts its cycle:
 • The vertical shaft will extend until the diamond tip touches the anvil above it. Due to the nature of the SMAC unit this process is done with high precision and a low force just at the time of feedback (touching the anvil)
• The vertical shaft then retracts to its starting position which is just below the fingers of the SMAC gripper unit
• The grippers now close and the software records the measurement taken
• The grippers then retract, allowing the linear/rotary actuator to turn either 180deg for a square diamond or in 16 divisions of 22-1/2deg for a round diamond.
• After all measurements have been taken the grippers retract allowing the operator to remove the diamond from the machine.
• All of these readings will be taken in under 7 seconds for a round diamond.
Data can then be extracted out of the program into an Excel spreadsheet for further manipulation, calculation or data storage.
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