Fond du Lac, WI – April 1, 2008 – Sheffield Measurement, a brand of Hexagon Metrology, Inc., today unveiled the new Cordax Discovery III, the next evolution of their original shop floor CMM product line. The Discovery III offers higher accuracy, improved thermal performance, and a new industrial design. Mechanical design improvements and advanced geometric thermal compensation algorithms form the basis of the Discovery III performance enhancements. Available in three measuring ranges from 20”x24”x16” to 30”x40”x24”, the new CMM is sized to suit the majority of manufactured parts. The D28 CMM is now available for shipping. The D8 and D12 CMMs will be available later this year. Sheffield's original Cordax Discovery CMM created the concept of affordable automatic dimensional inspection at the point of manufacture on the shop floor.
The main design features of Discovery III are hardened linear guides and recirculating ball bearings in place of air bearings. This improvement forms the backbone of Discovery’s shop hardened design.  When combined with the new lighter weight bellows covers, Discovery III is especially resistant to shop-borne contaminants that resign traditional air bearing CMMs to the quality laboratory. In addition, with no requirement for air and a roll-around stand, Discovery III advances shop floor layout flexibility to a whole new level.

“Discovery III continues to pioneer innovations like its predecessor  - the Discovery CMM - more than a decade ago. Namely, the relocation of the CMM from the quality lab to location in the factory where precise dimensional inspection is required,” stated Product Manager, Eric Bennett.  “Whether that’s receiving inspection, R&D, or shoulder-to-shoulder with machine tools in some of the harshest manufacturing environments imaginable, Discovery CMMs are up to the task. The performance improvements designed into Discovery III further enhance the already strong value proposition for the customer.”

Improved Accuracy and Thermal Performance

Discovery III also provides improved accuracy and thermal performance by a combination of mechanical and controller improvements. First, bimetallic interfaces – places in the structure where dissimilar materials meet – have been further reduced from the mechanical design, making thermally induced geometry errors more predictable, and thus correctable using new advanced geometric thermal compensation algorithms in the controller.

New Probing Options

The new CMM also offers a wide range of probing options from economical touch trigger probes to high performance continuous contact analog scanning probes. New Swiss-made TESASTAR® probing systems are being introduced on Discovery III CMMs.  The TESASTAR-m-m8, the new TESA® automatic indexing probe head, has all of the advanced design features of the TESASTAR-m, plus a direct M8 interface.  The new TESASTAR-mp probe and TESASTAR-pr probe rack work together to provide easy automatic changing of magnetically coupled probe modules.

About Sheffield Measurement

Sheffield Measurement brings more than a century of experience to the design and manufacture of dimensional measurement products.  Sheffield’s Cordax® brand CMMs have been adopted by hundreds of companies around the world for the dimensional inspection of their precision manufactured parts. More information can be found at www.SheffieldMeasurement.com .

About Hexagon Metrology

Hexagon Metrology serves the high precision measurement and inspection needs of worldwide manufacturers with its extensive line of metrology hardware, software, accessories, and customer services. The company's name-brand portfolio of quality assurance products include Brown & Sharpe, CogniTens, Leica Geosystems, ROMER, Sheffield, PC-DMIS, DEA, Leitz, and TESA. Hexagon Metrology has an unrivaled installed base of more than 1.5 million handheld, stationary and portable measurement devices, and over 30,000 seats of PC-DMIS metrology software. More information is at www.HexagonMetrology.us

The company is a subsidiary of Hexagon Measurement Technologies, a business unit of Hexagon AB (Nacka Strand, Sweden), a publicly-traded company (OMX Nordic: HEXA B). The Hexagon group consists of nearly 8,200 employees located in 30 countries.