Timber measuring tool for sawmills

Together with Carter Holt Harvey Fibre-Gen, Industrial Research developed a timber width scanner for sawmills. The product is now marketed by Carter Holt Harvey under the name Surveyor STM800.

The device is designed to measure multiple pieces of timber from a single block of wood. Mounted over the saw outlet, Surveyor STM800 measures the width of up to 12 boards simultaneously, contact free, in 40mm intervals and up to 0.1mm accuracy.

This automation means the saw does not need to be stopped for the measurement, avoiding costly downtime. This alone generated a payback time of less than a year in our two Australian test sites. Cutting errors caused by wrongly adjusted or worn saw blades can be noticed instantly. Measuring nearly every board every 40mm also delivers a much better size control.

There are some similar scanners on the market, however the advantage of the Surveyor STM800 is that it can be extending by adding more cameras if a larger field of view should be required. We use off the shelf components which reduces costs and makes the system more rugged than others which require purpose-built cameras or mirrors.