![The new MK5 range of thickness gauges by Cygnus Instruments has captured the attention of the Red Dot Awards and the company has been awarded an 'Honourable Mention'](https://iims-media-library.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/12153802/MK5-GROUP-IMAGE-UK.jpg)
Cygnus Instruments Ltd’s new MK5 ultrasonic thickness gauge has been awarded an ‘Honourable Mention’ by Red Dot Award for its durable design.
The Red Dot Award panel comprising a 38 member jury panel awarded an ‘Honourable Mention’ for the Cygnus Instruments Ltd’s design, which is the result of a twin shot injection moulded enclosure that has a soft but durable TPE outer skin, making them both comfortable and durable. Meanwhile, the inner shell is strong, keeping the electronics totally sealed from the outside environments.
Following extensive customer engagement and working within industry standards, Cygnus Instruments developed the new range of ultrasonic thickness gauges, which still use the well-established multiple-echo technique for error-checked readings through coatings but also incorporates single-echo and echo-echo measuring modes for obtaining measurements in areas of extreme corrosion or back wall pitting.
The range has achieved the toughest American Military Standard MIL SPEC 810G for environmental protection and consists of five new models offering an array of new features including large colour A-scan and B-scan display, two types of data logging options, manual gain control, Bluetooth data transfer capability and a vibrate alert to warn the operator when the measurement is out of tolerance.
In addition, the gauges feature a Measurement Stability Indicator (MSI) which is used in single-echo and echo-echo modes. This technique samples returning echoes to ensure they are all identical, if the returning echoes are identical the display changes colour or format which indicates the reading is stable and reliable.
The international experts discussed and assessed each of the 4,928 entries from 56 countries but only the designs that displayed high quality and innovative power were given an award.