(AICON: Braunschweig, Germany) -- In the past, free-form tubes were in demand primarily from the furniture business for design reasons. These days, demand is generated from all industrial areas. Consequently, more tube benders need measuring systems that take the particular problems of complex free-form tubing into account.

This is where AICON’s optical measurement system TubeInspect offers an ideal solution. It carries out very precise testing of free-form tube geometries with the help of high-resolution digital cameras. But AICON has gone one step further: the Germany-based company now offers an additional interface that connects TubeInspect directly with the free-form bending machine. This results in automatic correction values being identified for the formed tubes and transmitted to the bending machine. Thus, set-up time is shortened considerably. A close cooperation with the bending machine manufacturer Wafios from Reutlingen, Germany, has made this new development possible.

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