Measuring system for the machine for the production of plastic plates
Our customer produces plastic sheets for further use in the production of swimming pools, plastic tanks, etc. The material varies in width and color. Impurities on boards, cracks, scratches, bubbles and color deviations lead to large losses of material and downtime in production.
Challenge:
Our cutomer produces plastic sheets for further use in the production of swimming pools, plastic tanks, etc. The material varies in width and color.
Impurities on boards, cracks, scratches, bubbles and color deviations lead to large losses of material and downtime in production. Occasional checks by employees are not effective enough to detect defects during material movement and to cut defective material in time. Quality control of production is also not possible without slowing down the material flow. This leads to an uncontrolled and unwanted shutdown of production.
The following errors occur:
- Scratches
- Bubbles and other surface irregularities of the material
- Pressed impurities
- Color deviations due to improperly mixed color before production.
Proposal:
In order to improve the production process, the decision was made to use modern technologies of industrial image processing and vision system communication with the line, so that when a defect is detected, a warning for the operator lights up. In the case of automatic cutting, a signal is sent to the PLC with data on the distance of the defect from the measurement point.
The system should work for different recipes and conveyor running speeds.
Solution:
Automated machine vision quality control has been established with the following components:
- Industrial computer
- Cameras: Cognex CIC 4000 and Matrix Vision
- Lights: White linear lights.
- Machine Vision Software: Cognex
- Communication with PLC: Ethernet/Ip or PROFINET. Other protocols are also possible.
HMI:
The HMI is designed to allow the user to easily and quickly set up new recipes, go through an archive of results, check signals sent or received from the PLC or view a live image from a camera. The system also stores a photo of each defect and writes program logs to the database for easier verification of the application's status.
At the request of the customer, tracking of the found defect was added as well as confirmation of each defect by the operator. Also, the screen shows the last found defects.
The result:
- Reduction of downtime
- Significant reduction of errors in production
- Increasing the quality of products for the consumer
- Statistics of production defects
