M5, Star styli, silicon nitride sphere, straight, tungsten carbide shaft

Star styli consist of spherical styli combined in a star shape and enable measurements in different coordinate directions. Where as probing with spherical styli from the side surfaces is only possible to a limited extent, with the star stylus you can select the stylus for probing that is orthogonal to the probed surface.

Tungsten carbide is the most common shaft material, it combines a very good stiffness with an acceptable thermal expansion. Only the weight can have a negative effect when using large styli. The straight shaft is the simplest stylus design and the one with the longest usable length. The full shaft length can be used as measuring length. Tungsten carbide shafts represent a good combination in terms of weight, rigidity and thermal expansion.

Silicon nitride styli are just as universally applicable as ruby styli. However, they show less material deposits when scanning aluminum or other soft materials. This does not mean that there iare no deposits here. SiN spheres also shows this problem, the effect only occurs at a later point in time in the process. Due to the almost identical hardness compared to ruby, SiN spheres are equally susceptible to material removal when measuring hard, abrasive materials.