Notes on Test Ring Specimens

Thank you for your inquiring about Magwerks test rings.

First the term “Ketos” is actually Crucible Steel’s tradename for AISI – 01 tool steel. The term “Ketos” has been used in
our industry so long that it has become a common term for the test ring specimen. Both the “Ketos” Ring and the
“AS5282” Ring are manufactured out of the same AISI-01 tool steel and dimensionally equivalent with the exception of the
removal of deepest few holes from the AS5282 version.

The reason that SAE AS-5282 came about was because of the variations in the rings over the past 50 years or so that the
“Ketos Ring” has been available. Previous to introduction of AS5282 there was no “magnetic” qualification that the ring
had to pass to insure the rings had consistent magnetic characteristics. The goal of AS5282 was to magnetically qualify
the test rings and make them traceable. In any magnetically homogeneous material one should expect to see a direct
relationship between the field strength and the measurement distance. The inverse square would result in air, and in a
magnetically homogeneous material one should expect something approaching this same relationship.

With a qualified magnetizing power supply (not an mpi machine) and proper magnetic data logging equipment an
individualized field leakage plot of the ring may be obtained in order to quantify and qualify this variable. This is also a
requirement for properly certifying the ring.

It is often that people get confused over the proper use of the Ketos test ring and to help add clarification, a flier outlining
the use of this item has been attached for your reference.

In short, this ring is considered a quick and easy “gauge” to determine the machine’s overall inspection performance and
to be used as one of the daily systems tests which are to be performed and logged for each machine you have. So with
this being said, you are using the ring to check your system, not the system to check the ring.

As most people are aware, the ring is for use only on machines with a DC output waveform. That could be HWDC or
FWDC, in a single phase or a three phase design; any one of these waveforms should give similar results on the test ring
assuming the ammeters are scaled and calibrated properly. Not all ammeters that claim to be scaled to properly read
HWDC are; this can also be a major source of consternation when using the test ring.

When running the ring tests and comparing the results to the AS5282 table, it is imperative that the current is maintained
as close as possible to the values stated in the table. Anything more than a 10% machine variation will likely give
erroneous results. The current machine calibration specification allows the machine’s ammeter have up to a ±10%
deviation from the “certified shunt test kit”. There is currently no accuracy standard that shunt test kit has to meet. This
means that if the shunt kit is perfect, and you are 10% over the magnetizing value on the machine’s meter, it could really
be a 20% (plus the rounding error of the meters) total deviation from the desired amperage.

When performing the daily systems checks, it is generally good practice to select an amperage that is similar to the value
used for part inspection, so that you are running the ring tests as close to your real operating range as possible. Many
times this can cover a very broad range of current levels and may require multiple ring tests to be made and logged at the
beginning of each shift.

With all of this being said, how many lines you get on a good AS5282 ring (gauge) will not be a variable of the ring itself,
but some combination of the variables of the entire inspection system. If someone has a good ring and are having some
problems developing an adequate number of lines at a given amperage, this would indicate a system problem which
would need to be corrected.

Any ring without an individual serialized field plot should be suspect right away. Without a proper method of magnetically
qualifying the ring, (either one) it is much like having a micrometer with random numbers then trying to use it as a
“standard” to make good parts; it simply cannot be done.

There are many system variables that can affect how many lines that someone might see on the ring, in addition to the
variables in the rings itself, but once you have a known good standard, then you can make meaningful tests.

Best Regards,
Patrick Jenkins