Dial-X Automated Equipment (Albion, IN, USA; www.dial-x.com) provides single-source machine-building and integration services for pharmaceutical, food and beverage, automotive, and consumer goods manufacturing applications. To develop a connector assembly verification system based on machine vision, Dial-X assembled and tested all equipment in-house, installing the equipment at the customer's plant and providing product support throughout the machine's lifecycle.

For the connector inspection system, Dial-X used 11 PresencePLUS cameras from Banner Engineering (Minneapolis, MN, USA; www.bannerengineering.com), along with two spotlights, a backlight, and an on-axis light. Each lighting type was selected for the machine depending on the connector part to be inspected. The components were sold to Dial-X by C&E Sales (Dayton, OH, USA; www.cesales.com), a provider of automation solutions. "If we're verifying the connector's shape, we'll use a backlight to create a silhouette of the product," says Ryan Berkes, Dial-X project manager. "For verifying color, we'll use a spotlight to highlight the front part of the connector. The on-axis light is used to mute the color of one of four internal connector parts. This allows us to measure and verify that two parts are assembled correctly."

Fri Aug 15 14:58:00 CDT 2008