Application Note

3 Fluke Corporation Fluke 568 Infrared Thermometer keeps industrial processes on a roll
Holey schmoley!
“When I found out what that 568
did, I was like, holey schmoley,
this thing’s like a Godsend,”
Summers said. “As far as the
menu, it’s extremely intuitive.”
Adjusting the emissivity for accu-
rate readings on different materi-
als required only a few touches
on the control buttons. “A three-
year-old could do it,” he said.
He also experimented with the
FlukeView Forms software that
comes with the Fluke 568. “The
software was just simple and
intuitive,” he said. “Most of the
software I deal with on a daily
basis is just a pain. You need a
copy of ‘War and Peace,’ for a
manual. This, I was up and run-
ning and able to do a bake curve
in 30 seconds.” A bake curve dis-
plays the rate at which parts in
the finishing process are heated
and cooled over time. Gradual
heating and cooling delivers the
desired quality. ”Heating a clear
coat too fast will yellow the fin-
ish, Summers said.”
The unit’s two-level backlight
also won praise. “Every piece of
equipment I own has lights on
the screen, because there’s a
lot of times when you’re in the
dark,” he said.
A lifelong Fluke user, Sum-
mers said the Fluke 568 shows
the kind of performance he relies
on in his other Fluke tools. “My
life depends on Fluke—that’s
how I look at it,” he said. “When
I’m going into a cabinet to
troubleshoot and I’ve got to do
it live, I’ve got to depend on the
tools I’m dealing with. My meters
are Fluke meters. I put my life
in Fluke’s hands, and they take
good care of me.”
James Solomon monitors the surface temperature of a wheel that
just had a primer coat applied in the spray booth in Helios Coatings
research lab.
Mitch Curtin of Helios Coatings Inc., uses the 568 IR Thermometer
to check the exit temperature of wheels after a metal primer coat-
ing is cured in a UV oven.
A taste—and tests—for
fine cheese
The processes he tracked were
way different, but temperature
control was equally important
for John Cummings, Maintenance
Supervisor at Vermont Butter
and Cheese Co. in Websterville,
Vt. He wasn’t refinishing Chevy
rims, but watching over the plant
producing Chèvre goat’s milk
cheese and other fine European-
style cheeses and butter.
Both the quality and safety of
dairy products requires precise
control of the timing and tem-
perature at each step in the pro-
duction process. A veteran in the
dairy products business, Cum-
mings worked for Ben & Jerry’s
Homemade Ice Cream and Cabot
Creamery Cooperative before
moving to Vermont Butter and
Cheese. He used the Fluke 568
to double-check the sensors and
controls built into the production
equipment at Vermont Butter and
Cheese.
“It’s very high quality gourmet
Food Channel type cheeses,”
Cummings said. “We’ve got a
climate control system that con-
trols temperature and humidity,
we have an aging room, a drying
room, and I would just go in and
double check the temperatures
there to make sure it matched up
with the computer. Sometimes
you get a drift on those.”
And was the interface easy
to use? “Sí,” Cummings joked. “I
used the language options.” The
Fluke 568 offers six language
choices for the user interface.
Having been shipped to him
before the 568’s test process was
completely in place, his test unit
was out of calibration, but the
deviation was consistent so Cum-
mings adjusted to compensate.
Beta-testers sometimes have to
be flexible.