What is it good for?

By Tom Welsh |
A montage of MicroScribe arms at work: digitizing a skull, mounted on top of a suspension bridge, digitizing a clay maquette, teaching a robot, in a surgical lab, under a car bumper, measuring a machined part, at office desks, and beside a giant horse balloon. On the right, a yellow MicroScribe i stands beside a large red question mark. Text reads: What is it good for? Buying a used MicroScribe, Part 1.

Before asking whether a used MicroScribe still works, it is worth asking whether a MicroScribe fits your work at all. Part 1 of a short series for anyone considering a used arm.

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The third generation

By Tom Welsh |
Left, MicroScribe serial 60327, a red arm in service since 2000, measuring the front suspension of a Nissan GT4 race car. Right, under the heading The third generation, three MicroScribe arms in red, black, and yellow representing the 3D, G, and i model families covered by the PLUS Upgrade.

Steve Conover’s MicroScribe has already lived through two generations of electronics. The PLUS Upgrade is the third: a new arm inside the one you already trust.

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Does it still work?

By Tom Welsh |
A hand holds the stylus of a MicroScribe arm in front of a laptop showing the MicroScribe Arm Tester page at revware.net. The page reads Connected: MicroScribe G2LX and shows a live stylus view, six joint dials, and position and orientation readouts. Blue, red, and yellow MicroScribe arms stand behind the laptop.

A MicroScribe turned up in a closet, or is sitting on eBay. Is it alive? The new browser-based MicroScribe Arm Tester answers that in about thirty seconds, for any arm ever made, with nothing to install.

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Unit 0

By Tom Welsh |
A hand moves the stylus of unit 0, the red 1995 MicroScribe prototype, while a Windows 11 laptop beside it shows live coordinates in MUS and captured points in Excel.

The oldest MicroScribe in existence, running the newest software in existence. Founder Tom Welsh connects the 1995 prototype to a Windows 11 laptop and MUS 8.

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Plug it in

By Tom Welsh |
Branded Revware quote card over a darkened archive photo of a clay character model being digitized, reading: Your computer already knows how to talk to a MicroScribe.

Why no MicroScribe has ever needed a driver install, and how a design decision from 2000 keeps twenty-year-old arms working with this year’s software.

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Additive is growing up

By Tom Welsh |
Quote card: Verify continuously, not at the finish line. A MicroScribe measuring a cast housing on the bench.

Notes on 3D Measurement Point of view · In-process quality Real-time, in-process quality verification is the shift that turns additive manufacturing from a prototyping tool into a production one. Tom…

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Keeping the tools alive

By Tom Welsh |
A researcher digitizing a primate cranium with a yellow MicroScribe arm.

Notes on 3D Measurement Stewardship · Forensic Anthropology Why I took over maintaining 3D-ID and 3Skull, two tools the forensic anthropology community depends on, after their authors passed away. Tom…

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