Automatic Temperature Measurement and Monitoring System for Milling Process of AA6041 Aluminum Aloy using MLX90614 Infrared Thermometer Sensor with Arduino

Manufacturing process of metal part requires real-time temperature monitoring capability to ensure high surface integrity is upheld throughout the machining process. A smart temperature measurement and monitoring system for manufacturing process of metal parts is necessary to meet quality and productivity requirements. A smart temperature measurement can be applied in machining processes of conventional, non-conventional and computer numerical control (CNC) machines. Currently, an infrared fusion based thermometer Fluke Ti400 was employed for temperature measurement in a machining process. However, measured temperature in the form of data list with adjustable time range setting is not automatically linked to the computer for continuous monitoring and data analysis purposes. For this reason, a smart temperature measurement system was developed for a CNC milling operation on aluminum alloy (AA6041) using a MLX90614 infrared thermometer sensor operated by Arduino. The system enables data linkages with the computer because MLX90614 is compatible and linked to Microsoft Exel via the Arduino. This paper presents a work-study on the performance of this Arduino based temperature measurement system for dry milling process application. Here, the Arduino based temperature measurement system captured the workpiece temperature during machining of Aluminum Alloy (AA6041) and data were compared with the Fluke Ti400 infrared thermometer. Measurement results from both devices showed similar accuracy level with a deviation of ± 2 oC. Hence, a smart temperature measurement system was succeesfully developed expanding the scopes of current system setup.