Chain drives are essential to automotive manufacturing. These drives are typically used to transport automotive frames down kilometer-long production lines. Unfortunately, constant vibration and pull on the chain links can cause them to stretch, be distorted and break, resulting in unplanned downtime, as well as lost productivity and profits.
The traditional approach to chain drive inspection is to have a technician hold up a metal rectangle of the same length as the link and visually compare the two. If a link looks problematic, he marks the chain and hopes it continues to function until the next scheduled maintenance. If the chain breaks in the meantime, the manufacturer incurs expensive downtime until the chain is repaired.