The Solution
A fully automated quality control and inspection system to handle and inspect two types of plastic coffee filter disc.
Coffee filter discs are loaded into a bulk hopper direct from the customer’s moulding machine. The centrifugal feeder orientates the discs and feeds them onto a conveyor transfer. The conveyors transfer the orientated discs from the centrifugal feeder onto a transparent rotating disc where they are presented to a vision inspection system.
Reject discs are diverted off the disc and good discs are transported via a chute into a waiting box.
An operator manually loads empty boxes onto 2 two-tier conveyors, one per side, which will automatically position the boxes prior to loading with discs.
Feed System
The system operates at up to a rate of 1800 parts/minute (900 parts/minute/side).
The system comprises of:
Inspection Disc and Vision System
Inspection Disc – Coffee filter discs are presented to the vision system on a rotating transparent disc; four cameras are mounted around the glass inspection disc.
The system inspects from all three planes: 1. Top for damage and OCR; 2. Bottom for diameter and damage; 3. Side for damage, height and profile.
Coffee filter discs that fail the vision inspection are rejected from the disc into a common reject chute via pneumatically operated air nozzles. An additional reject station identifies and sort coffee filter discs based on OCR. All chutes are fitted with a check sensor to confirm successful rejection of products.
APL Skills
Machine building and integration, machine and process control, Robot integration, Vision inspection for quality control, Feeding and Handling, Project management
