Before You Rent a FARO Laser Tracker: A Six-Step Quality Checklist

Before You Rent a FARO Laser Tracker: A Six-Step Checklist

I'm the quality and brand compliance manager at our manufacturing site. Every product line that ships goes past my desk for sign-off—roughly 200 items a year—and in 2024 we rejected about 17% of first deliveries for out-of-tolerance dimensions or incomplete records. So when a rented FARO laser tracker shows up on the loading dock, my name is on the receiving sheet. That's why this checklist exists.

If you're the person who has to approve a capital request for a portable measurement system, an operating microscope upgrade, or a new batch of HPLC columns, the spreadsheet math is easy. The hard part is the ten days after the equipment arrives. That's the reason I wrote this FARO laser tracker rental checklist in the first place. Here's the sequence I run before signing anything.

When This Checklist Applies

This checklist is for you if:

• You have a large fixture, welded frame, or machined bed that won't fit on a fixed CMM—or the fixed CMM has a three-week backlog
• You need a portable 3D measurement system (think the laser tracker FARO class of equipment, or similar) for roughly three to ten days
• An out-of-tolerance measurement means a four-figure-plus rework bill, not a scrap coupon

It's not the right list for you if you just need to learn how to read a Starrett micrometer properly. That's a different problem—solved by a two-hour training session and a $40 gage block, not a $4,000 rental.

Step 1: Pin Down Range and Accuracy—Then Challenge Both

Write down two numbers before you do anything else: the measurement volume in meters, and the tolerance you have to certify inside that volume. A 5-meter envelope at ±0.05 mm is a laser tracker job. A 0.5-meter envelope at ±0.01 mm probably isn't—that's either a fixed CMM or a portable arm, depending on access.

Most people skip the accessories question here. The tracker itself is only half the kit. What comes with it—the targets, the nest, the tripod, the software dongle—determines whether your first day is productive or wasted. Ask for an itemized inventory down to the target sizes. We once rented a "complete" system that had no 1.5" targets included. Three days of work, two of them scrambled.

From experience: the day rate is the least interesting number in the contract. What matters is whether the system can hit your tolerance in your environment. A laser tracker on a shop floor with a 6°C temperature swing across a 10-meter span will not be more accurate than its compensation data allows. That's not a sales problem—that's physics.

Step 2: Ask for Calibration History, Not the Marketing Folder

When a vendor says "it's calibrated," they usually mean "it was calibrated at some point in the last 12 months." The information you actually want is the certificate: calibration date, reference standard, and lab identity.

The standard reference for this class of equipment is ASME B89.4.19-2006 (R2016)—Methods for Performance Evaluation of Laser-Based Spherical Coordinate Measurement Systems—plus ISO 10360-10:2021 for acceptance testing. If the rental vendor can't tell you when the unit was last tested against a traceable standard, that's your first red flag.

Here's the pitfall in my own history. In 2022, we received a batch of 200 precision brackets where a critical bore was off by 0.003" against our spec. Normal tolerance was ±0.002". The vendor claimed it was "within industry standard." We rejected the batch and they redid it at their cost—but that ate six weeks off the program. That was the year I made calibration certificates a contract requirement, not a courtesy.

Step 3: Demand a Pre-Delivery Verification Report

This is the step most people skip, and it's the one I now refuse to sign without. Before the tracker leaves the vendor's facility, ask for a verification report that includes:

• The serial number of the exact unit being shipped
• The date of the last field verification (within 30 days of shipment)
• The test procedure used, standing against ASME B89.4.19 or ISO 10360-10
• A pass/fail statement against the manufacturer's published specification

"Factory calibrated" is not the same as "verified before shipment." A unit can be calibrated to spec and still be dropped in transit. The verification report is your only evidence that the machine that arrives is the machine that was certified.

I'll also ask the vendor to ship a small reference artifact—a calibrated sphere or a known baseline—so my own team can do a short check on arrival. If we can't reproduce the baseline within the stated uncertainty, the unit goes back before the clock starts. That one habit has saved us two rentals.

Step 4: Confirm Software Licensing and Training in Writing

Laser trackers don't measure anything without software, and the software is where the hidden costs live. Ask which license version ships with the rental—FARO CAM2, PolyWorks, or the vendor's in-house package—and whether the license is node-locked or dongle-based. A dongle that walks away is a $3,000 surprise.

Training is the other thing people assume is included. It usually isn't, or it's a one-hour Webex that leaves your operator hunting through menus for the first day. Get the training hours in writing: how many, on-site or remote, and whether a ride-along support day is part of the package.

And yes, the same discipline applies to the simple stuff. If your team can't read a Starrett micrometer with consistent technique—thimble, ratchet stop, lock, repeat—they're not going to run a tracker well either. The difference is that the micrometer error costs you a reworked part, and the tracker error costs you a missed shipment.

Step 5: Nail Down Shipping, Insurance, and Wear in the Contract

The rental agreement is usually written by the vendor's lawyer, not yours. Here's what you want spelled out:

• Transit insurance: who carries it, and at what declared value
• Wear vs. damage: what counts as normal use and what triggers a charge
• Missing accessories: replacement cost per item, in a schedule
• Return window: the exact timestamp the rental ends—delivery receipt or opening?

We once returned a kit missing one target prism. Replacement charge: $1,100 against a $4,200 three-day rental. That's 26% of the rental fee for a $90 part. It wasn't the vendor's fault—we'd handed the kit to a contractor and didn't inventory it on return. Now we photograph and sign off every item on both ends. Not glamorous, but neither is explaining a chargeback to finance.

Step 6: Run the Total-Cost Math, Not the Day-Rate Math

This is where the value-versus-price discussion actually happens. The day rate is a distraction. The number that matters is the total cost of getting the measurement done—including the hours your people spend learning the software, the travel if the tracker is remote, and the rework cost if the data is wrong.

Our last rental ran $4,200 for three days. Add $1,600 in operator time, plus a full extra day because our team didn't know the CAM2 shortcuts for re-baselining, and we were at $6,900 before the first useful scan. The cheaper quote we passed up was $200/day less but included on-site training and a ride-along day. On paper, we saved $600. In practice, we lost $1,900 in wasted labor and lost schedule.

Calculated the worst case: a day of rework at $1,200. Best case: save $600. The expected value said take the cheaper quote, but the downside felt catastrophic, and that's before counting the schedule slip. I have mixed feelings about day-rate shopping now. On one hand, the rental market is competitive, and a lower rate is a real signal. On the other, if the cheap unit arrives with the wrong targets and no training, the rate never mattered.

Looking back, I should have asked for the verification report and the training hours in the first email. At the time, I assumed a brand-name tracker would come ready to run. It didn't. Given what I knew then—nothing about that vendor's hand-off process—the assumption wasn't crazy, but it wasn't professional either.

Mistakes I've Watched People Make

• Booking the tracker before the acceptance test is confirmed. If the test fails, the clock is already running.
• Renting the cheapest day rate without checking what's in the box. The invoice adds up fast once targets, training, and software are line items.
• Skipping the return inventory. That's where the surprise charges come from.
• Assuming the tracker measures everything. It doesn't. Small features, tight radii, and anything below the tracker's effective working volume want a CMM or a portable arm.
• Not aligning calibration and the contract. The vendor's spec sheet and your purchase order should share the same acceptance procedure. If they don't, you're arguing about two different documents when something goes wrong.

That's the list. Run it in order, get the verification report before you sign, and treat the day rate as the last number you look at. My honest view: the rental with the best paperwork is usually the cheaper one in the end.