Olympus NDT has introduced the Magna-Mike 8600 Hall Effect Thickness Gauge. Their new instrument is a portable thickness gauge that utilizes a simple magnetic method to make reliable thickness measurements on nonferrous materials. Typical applications include thin-wall thickness measurements on blow-molded plastic bottles, thermal-formed plastic trays, extruded tubing, and automotive tear seams. The Magna-Mike 8600 can also be used on glass and composites, and on any nonferrous metal (aluminum, brass, copper, titanium) with a thickness range from 0.001 mm up to 25.4 mm (0.0001 in. to 1 in.).
To make a measurment, a magnetic probe is held or scanned on one side of the test material while a small target ball is placed on the opposite side or dropped inside a container. The probe’s Hall Effect sensor measures the distance between the probe tip and the target ball, which is immediately displayed as a digital thickness reading. Material properties do not affect the accuracy of the measurement.
The Magna-Mike 8600 offers both straight and angled magnetic probes that feature replaceable wear caps to extend the probe’s durability and reduce replacement costs. An expanded assortment of magnetic and non-magnetic steel target balls, disks and wire targets makes the Magna-Mike 8600 useful for applications with complex geometry where ultrasonic thickness measurements are difficult or impossible. Nondestructive measurement capabilities allow for pinpoint thickness readings in tight corners and grooves.
The Magna-Mike 8600 comes with a color LCD display, and has standard thickness measurement features such as minimum and maximum scan and a strip chart view feature. The unit comes with USB, RS-232, and VGA outputs.
The internal data logger for the Magna-Mike 8600 provides internal storage of thickness data of more than 475,000 thickness readings in various file formats, and a Micro SD card slot provides additional storage and data transfer. The 8600 can export data to the Micro SD card in CSV (Comma Separated Values) or text formats that can be copied or pasted into almost any windows program. The included WinXL interface program allows the Magna-Mike 8600 to send thickness reading directly to an Excel spread sheet.
Source: Olympus
