A wheel alignment apparatus for measuring the toe angle of a wheel of a vehicle including an adjustable housing, a scale slider including one or more measurement scales, and a centering marker, and a toe positioning pin projecting from an end of the adjustable housing, the toe positioning pin configured to be rigidly connected to the adjustable housing during operation of the wheel alignment apparatus, wherein the scale slider is adjustable to a plurality of positions within the housing.

Electronic measuring instrument equipped with a removable intelligent processing and radio communication interface. The interface allows managing additional features such as bidirectional communication of commands and measurement data with printers, computers or other external devices, as well as the transmission of instructions or measurement programs to the instrument. The radio interface may be connected with several measuring instruments such as callipers, micrometers, comparators or height gauges. It is integrated into the lid of the battery compartment of the instrument, so that it can be installed and removed easily and without impairing the seal. The cover also includes an extra battery for the processing and radio transmission interface.

An electronic absolute position encoder includes a scale extending along a measuring axis direction (MA) and including a signal modulating scale pattern defining a corresponding absolute range R along MA, a detector including sensing elements arranged along MA and configured to provide detector signals which respond to the signal modulating scale pattern, and a signal processing configuration that determines an absolute position of the detector along the scale based on the detector signals. The signal modulating scale pattern includes a coarse periodic pattern component as a function of position along the scale having a spatial wavelength λ.sub.C, wherein n*λ.sub.C=R and n is an integer, and a fine periodic pattern component as a function of position along the scale having a spatial wavelength λ.sub.F, wherein (mn+1)*λ.sub.F=R and m is an integer that is at least two. The wavelengths λ.sub.C and λ.sub.C may be widely separated.

Tared Caliper consists of the measuring bar with fixed jaw, moving frame with the measuring indicator and with the moving jaw, attached to the accurate feed mechanism. Measurement calibrated effort device, which ensures the optimal effort during the measurements with the vernier caliper measurements, is arranged between the moving frame and accurate feed mechanism.

An inductive sensor device has a scale with scale elements that provide a field pattern in at least one line extending in a measuring direction. The inductive sensor device contains at least one receive circuit with at least one receive coil. The receive coil and the scale are moveable relative to each other in the measuring direction. The receive coil extends from a first end to a second end in the measuring direction. It has a first end section directly adjacent to the first end and a second end section directly adjacent to the second end, and middle section. Each of the sections contains at least one loop of the receive coil. In the end sections the loop area decreases from loop to loop from the loop next to the middle section toward the respective end. Such a loop design compensates for misalignments between the receive coil and the scale.

A caliper measurement force detecting device includes a fixed unit that is securely attached to a slider so as not to displace relative to the slider; a movable unit that is provided to allow a slight displacement relative to the fixed unit along a direction parallel to a displacement direction of the slider; and pressure detectors that are arranged between the fixed unit and the movable unit and are provided so as to detect pressure applied in the direction parallel to the displacement direction of the slider. The movable unit includes an alternative finger hook that is arranged near a finger hook of the slider and serves as an operator that pushes and pulls the slider instead of the finger hook of the slider.

An inductive type position encoder includes a scale, a detector portion and a signal processor. The scale includes a periodic pattern of signal modulating elements (SME) arranged along a measuring axis with a spatial wavelength W1. The SME in the pattern comprise similar conductive plates or loops. The detector portion comprises sensing elements and a field generating coil that generates a changing magnetic flux. The sensing elements may comprise conductive loop portions arranged along the measuring axis and configured to provide detector signals which respond to a local effect on the changing magnetic flux provided by adjacent SME's. In various implementations, SMEs having an average dimension DSME along the measuring axis direction that is at least 0.55*W1 and at most 0.8*W1 are combined with sensing elements having an average dimension along the measuring axis direction that is at least 0.285*W1 and at most 0.315*W1, which improves detector signal accuracy.

An inductive position encoder includes a scale, detector, and signal processor. The scale includes a periodic pattern of signal modulating elements (SME) arranged along a measuring axis (MA) with spatial wavelength W1. The detector comprises sensing elements and a field generating coil that generates changing magnetic flux. The sensing elements comprise conductive loops that provide detector signals responsive to a local effect on the magnetic flux provided by adjacent SME's. The conductive loops have an average MA dimension that spatially filters a 3.sup.rd spatial harmonic signal component and are located along the MA according to an “inter-loop” shift relationship wherein first and second equal numbers of positive and negative polarity loops, are shifted in opposite directions by W1/4K (K=3, 5, 7, 9). Third and Kth spatial harmonic components are both reduced in the detector signals while using a novel “layout friendly” loop arrangement to solve longstanding detrimental layout problems.

A length measuring apparatus for use in combination with a cutting device having a cutting blade to measure length of a workpiece cut by the cutting blade comprises a slide rail which is secured relative to the cutting device when length is measured; and a sliding unit that is slidably mounted to the slide rail, the sliding unit having a sliding body, a length measuring unit that measures distance along which the sliding body slides relative to the slide rail, and an arm member that comes in contact with the workpiece when the workpiece is placed at a cutting position; wherein the sliding unit further comprises an angle gauge member, mounted at that tip portion of the arm member which comes in contact with the workpiece, that comes in contact with the cutting blade and measures a cutting angle of the cutting blade.

An object is to respectively excite transmission coils with different voltages using a single power supply with low power consumption in an electromagnetic induction type encoder. A detection head of an encoder includes a voltage adjustment circuit and a plurality of excitation circuits. The excitation circuit includes a resonant circuit that includes a driving capacitor and a transmission coil connected in series and generates an alternate-current magnetic field inducing currents in scale coils disposed in a plurality of scale tracks on a scale by connecting both ends of the resonant circuit in a state in which the driving capacitor is charged. The voltage adjustment circuit includes a first transformer capacitor and controls a charging voltage of the driving capacitor in a single excitation circuit using the charged first transformer capacitor.