Compensation

Understanding Thermal Drift Thermal drift is the change in machine geometry caused by temperature changes. Every material expands when heated. A 2-meter steel bed grows by 0.024mm for every 1 degree C increase. Over an 8-hour shift, the machine can change shape by enough to push holes out of tolerance. I have measured the effects of thermal drift on three different machine tools. Every one of them showed measurable geometry changes from cold start to stabilized running temperature. The changes ranged from 0.02mm to 0.08mm depending on the machine size and construction. ...