Application Note | Case Study | Technology Primer | White Paper
Machine Vision Tackles Tight
Tolerances to Provide 100%
Inspection of Interconnect Pins
Bead Industries, an interconnect pin
manufacturer in Milford, CT and a large
automotive EMS in the Midwest collaborated
several years ago to develop a highperformance interconnect pin for use in
automotive actuator control systems.
Bead’s “True Grip” Tandem Pin® with its
unique flanged design offers superior rigidity,
alignment and electrical conductivity while
requiring less solder.
Ensuring that each of the tens-of-millions of pins produced
on several machines precisely meets all specifications
presented a considerable challenge. Each pin measures
approximately .040” diameter x .472” long. They are
manufactured tip-to-tail in a continuous chain, taken up onto
a large reel and shipped directly to customers. This process
limited Bead’s options for performing quality inspections.
Manual inspection at periodic intervals was effective but
impractical as volume requirements increased. While
Bead’s customer did not require 100% inspection, Plant
Manager Kevin Mayer says, “An in-process, high-speed
vision inspection system that could measure multiple
dimensions on every pin and store the data was the only
way to achieve total confidence in our process and product.”
The DALSA solution
Bead began researching automated vision inspection
systems for three of its machines in the fall of 2008. Mayer
chose DALSA’s VA61 Vision Appliances, Genie cameras
and Sherlock software to verify the diameter, thickness and
length of the flange, and to measure the overall length of
each pin as it came out of the die-set. With the presses
running at 350 ppm, no other type of inspection solution
could keep pace reliably.
Plans to install more machine vision
Since installing the DALSA machine vision systems late in
2008, Bead has achieved 100% inspection of each of the
50+ million pins produced to date, and the company has
experienced no costly product returns.
“Because of these machine vision systems, Bead Industries
and our customers have complete confidence in every
single pin produced,” Mayer says. “Our goal is to have a
vision system on every machine in our plant so that we can
provide 100% inspection for all of our products.”
Inspection data collected from the DALSA
machine vision system gives Bead traceability
down to the day, hour and minute of production.
www.dalsa.com
Americas
Boston, USA
Tel: +1 978-670-2002
sales.ipd@dalsa.com
DALSA’s IPD VA61 compact vision controller interfaces with
Genie gigabit Ethernet cameras were installed on each of
the three machines producing Bead’s new patent-pending
interconnect pin. User-friendly Sherlock software running
on the vision controllers allows operators to get the system
up and running quickly with the simple click of an icon, while
Sherlock’s flexible and robust suite of tools enables Bead to
obtain precise measurements and identify trends that could
lead to non-conformances.
“The Sherlock software was more user-friendly than any of
the other programs we looked at,” Mayer said. “Because it
is flexible and easy to use, we program our vision inspection
stations for other components and other machines on our
plant floor as our production schedule requires.”
Each vision inspection station is networked to Bead’s
database. The inspection data collected provides
traceability down to the day, hour and minute of production,
allowing analysis of raw dimensional data and providing
insight into process variables such as tool wear. By
analyzing production trends, Bead is able to predict tool
life and proactively schedule tool changes and other
preventive maintenance. “This has improved our efficiency
tremendously since we can prepare for and schedule
tool changes rather than having to react to a potentially
catastrophic tool failure,” says Mayer.
Europe
Munich, Germany
Tel: +49 8142-46770
sales.europe@dalsa.com
Asia Pacific
Tokyo, Japan
+81 3-5960-6353
sales.asia@dalsa.com
DALSA is an international leader in digital imaging and semiconductors and has its corporate offices in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
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