I need to Borrow or Hire a Surface Roughness (Ra) Measuring Equipment

[pearsonow]

Hi All,

We are in the NW of England and are a small business who have the patent for some lighting technology. We are doing some additional research into the technology and I need to be able to measure the Ra Value of some drilled acrylic rods, before and after modification.

As you can probably imagine, surface roughness measuring equipment is not something we use normally. I don't really want to buy a piece of equipment which will probably be used for this experimentation and then never come out again.

If anyone has a piece of kit to measure Ra which I could borrow for a day or 2 I'd be very grateful! Failing that does anyone have any idea where I could hire one from?

I am also trying some of our suppliers but struggling to find someone...

Thanks All!

Olly

[Ninja]

Howdy,

In case you can't find a loaner, I just did a quick search for "A2LA surface roughness" and had many hits. The first one is here:

http://www.3d-scanning-services.net/...nish-analysis/

I can't comment on any of the labs...I just put the A2LA part in to weed the results down to services rather than machine vendors...

I am not associated with the lab above.

HTH

[pearsonow]

Thanks Ninja - I can easilly do a similar search for NPL certified labs here, the problem would be the number of tests and when we need them t be done - in essence there are 5 surfaces per item which we are adjusting to experiment with, these will be read 6 times initially so we have a datum of current manufacture. There will then be adjustments made to make this surface coarser on 2 sets ie 10 surfaces, and these may need intermediate measurements to get them all similiar. and then 2 will be used to make them smoother - again intermediate measurements may be required.

this is a lot of measurements and will be part way through a process - this is a possibly very expensive process if done in a lab.....

[Wes Bucey]

Why not contact the manufacturers/dealers of the instruments you think would fit the bill and inquire for the cost to rent a demo for the days/weeks you need? This way you will get a certified instrument to use. I agree these can be expensive little gadgets running to thousands of dollars to buy for small portable models, but the rentals ought to be affordable PLUS they will definitely show you how to use it so it works and you don't break it!.