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Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Question from a Customer

Q. I’m testing colored plastic specimens, and I’m having trouble getting my video extensometer to consistently locate the specimen marks. Can you help?

A.This is probably due to the lower contrast between the specimen color and the mark color. Try a range of different colors for the marks to find the best contrast. We have found that a very effective solution for marking colored specimens is to use two marks, one inside the other. For example, make a large white mark with a small black mark, or vice versa. This helps the video extensometer to identify the marks more consistently.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We have learned that our video extensometer dose not like large dots. Dots between 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch works best. Contrast is critical, white dots on black, black dots on white. We have had good luck picking contrasting colors. If all else fails
we color the back ground black and use white dots. Be sure to use an ink which will not affect the material.
-Raymond Hugo