Inspection and Defect Detection

INSPECT THE UNEXPECTED^tm

Boulder Imaging offers Quazar Vision Inspector Beacon a new intelligent machine vision system for inspection and defect detection

Inspection for surface defects

The Quazar Vision Inspector Beacon system inspects 2D surfaces (including cylindrical parts) for minute defects down to the micron level. The system includes lighting, one or more high speed, high resolution cameras, appropriate optics for your particular application, and one or more Quazar Vision Inspector: intelligent machine vision systems. The system is capable of integrating with your current robotics, if you have in place. If not, Boulder Imaging can specify and deliver the right robotic system for your needs, fully integrated with the Quazar Vision Inspector system.

What the system does

The system instantly scans the entire surface of the part and, within milliseconds, analyzes the surface for any defects. Defects could include chips, bubbles, inclusions, scratches, dents, or any other non-uniformity. You can now affordably and instantly inspect 100% of your parts, regardless of the speed of your manufacturing process. Why risk a single faulty part that could potentially lead to a catastrophic and costly failure in the field?

The system determines pass or fail and sends that result to the robotic system to sort as appropriate.  If a part fails, a high resolution image and a detailed data profile of the defects are sent to a quality control station for analysis.   From there reports can be generated describing overall and specific performance characteristics of the part and the production process.  This allows a production manager or process engineer to quickly identify and correct specific problems in the process or production line, in real-time.

How Lexmark uses the system today

At Lexmark, the Quazar Vision Inspector system both inspects printer drums at rates of 80 parts/min per production line and guides robots to sort the drums into “pass”or “fail” groups. There are 4 production lines currently being inspected. In addition, an operator workstation for each line allows an engineer to view defects as well as to perform rule-based classification into likely causes of the defects on the production line, improving overall assembly line quality and control.

The defects can be extremely small (bubbles, scratches, etc. down to 50 microns) and require powerful image processing to detect and classify. The BI system reduced 40% of costs due to defects in the printer drum manufacturing process.

The Quazar Vision Inspector system can also easily grow with Lexmark. As Lexmark creates new models, a simple tuning of algorithms for defect detection is all that is required. In effect, this solution addresses both current requirements and future needs while cutting down historical problems with false positives.

Boulder Imaging also had to address environmental and materials challenges in the solution design and implementation. Factors such as surface reflection, lighting, camera selection, etc., were all carefully integrated to create the successful implementation for Lexmark.

Currently being deployed for Lexmark is an additional system that measures the optical density of the coated drums to ensure consistency and uniformity of the coating.

Lexmark’s Kent Wehmeyer:

"Boulder Imaging has been our exclusive imaging system partner for over four years. In that time we have integrated four of their inspection systems into our production lines. These production lines run 24/7 and we depend on the inspection systems from Boulder Imaging to be 100% reliable. We can't run without them. The reliability has been excellent. These inspection systems are tightly coupled to our robotic parts handling systems. So we not only had the challenges of capturing and processing quality images, but also doing it within the time and space limitations of the work cell."