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Send to KindleA vision for low-cost inspection
“The sensor must be versatile enough to read a range of folded literature from thick inserts to some as thin as rice paper” says Farmer. And in various hues too: Subtle literature hues interpreted successfully by the vision sensor in gray scale include off-white and even a yellowish-gold paper.
Access now has 100% inspection of every single carton for literature presence. When asked about the viability of the system “the proof is in complaints from the field and there have been none” Farmer replies. Before when literature insertion was done manually the company would occasionally receive a complaint about the lack of an insert Packaging World is told.
More than lipstick service
Access also uses an F30 vision sensor for label presence installed this past summer on the infeed to an IWK cartoner for tubes of lipstick and mascara. A photocell was not practical for this application because the company wanted to do more than detect the presence of a label Farmer says; it also wanted to check placement accuracy. He says they set the parameters for placement tightly therefore they receive frequent false rejects. “It’s a fail-safe system” explains Farmer “as we even reject ones that are borderline good.” Farmer reports that they reject several products out of every hundred. Rejected products are then manually inspected.
The F30’s sensing head is mounted in a position beyond where a pressure-sensitive label is applied to the bottom of the lipstick tube. The circular product-identifying label measures 7/16’’ in dia. PW observed mascara being run with gold labels preprinted in black ink and embossed online with a production code. Some lipstick labels are even smaller just 3/8’’ in diameter Farmer says.
The sensing head is aimed at a small opening in the inclined metal infeed that holds the tubes just before they drop into a cartoner flight. The label can be seen through the opening.
The self-contained unit includes camera light source lens and controller. It carries a list price of $2 to which Access added a 9’’ black-and-white monitor. The system offers 256-gray scale level inspection. The adjustable shutter camera has image capture speeds to 1/3000 of a second. It inspects labels on tube bottoms as they roll by at rates between 35 and 40/min. Those without a label are then tracked by the cartoner’s PLC and rejected downstream.
Access’ continuing vision for the future includes more of these low-cost vision sensors.
See sidebar to this article: A detailed look
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