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Slide 65 of 69

Notes:

    KeyMed, a division of Olympus Optical Company Limited, have made the internal chassis and focusing mechanism of the company's Series 5 Rigid Borescope in an all brass construction, giving a significant cost and performance advantage, helping them to produce an improved product at a competitive price.
    Borescopes give visual access to remote areas and are used for inspecting all manner of plant and equipment, including amongst many others, jet engine turbine blades, heat exchanger tubes, printed circuit boards and pressure vessels.
    Brass was initially chosen for the Series 5 because of its machinability, corrosion resistance and strength, but it has been found to have many other advantages. Brass machines considerably faster than stainless steel, the other major contender, giving cost savings of over two thirds on larger more complex component parts, such as the main chassis housing. The majority of components used in the Series 5 control mechanism are complex machined parts, but because brass causes minimal tool wear, the company can maintain the high degree of accuracy and repeatability required to produce a precision optical instrument.
    The Series 5 has a number of bearing surfaces. Due to its inherent lubricity, brass on brass is used with only a minimal amount of grease. Previously aluminium was used, but this required a separate "oilite" bearing which added to the cost.
    Thin walled brass tube is also used to separate the optical components. These ‘spacers’ having a formed surface, reduce reflections which would otherwise degrade the image quality. Brass sheet is also chemically milled to form precision optical apertures.
    In summarising the benefits of using brass in this application, Ian Ross, Head of Research & Development at KeyMed, commented: "The use of brass has given us a strong precision chassis, good optical alignment and helped the ergonomics of the Series 5, giving it a very good balance in the hand. Even though machined components are now more complex, our costs have not increased".