Manufacturing Technology

In order to help make inspection processes faster and more efficient, Marposs Group has introduced a new 3D functionality to the Marposs Optoflash, an optical measuring unit that offers ultra fast cycle time – enabling both new level of quality controls and a superior ease of use.

In the fastener industry, quality controls of screws are a crucial activity for operators. While manufacturing operators generally control screws during ‘work in progress’ execution and at end of process, those operators in the supply channel need to guarantee inbound and outbound compliance to the nominal screw specifications. 

The high volume production, together with the high variety of screw models, generally results in demanding conditions for any operator in this industry, due to complexity of controls and consumption of time to execute the measurements. Technological innovation plays a key role in making inspection processes faster and more efficient to meet these challenges, which is where the Marposs Optoflash is able to stand out.

Thanks to its multiple and fixed position sensors, Marposs Optoflash can automatically control several different features on a screw in seconds. “The measurement of screws is not generally an easy task, due to the variability of the screw features and its profiles,” explains Marposs. “Nevertheless, on the Optoflash the measuring technical complexity is managed by the software and is not visible to the users. In fact, the Optoflash automatically compensates the variability of the part positioning on the holder and also the possible form errors of the screw.”

In addition to Optoflash’s ability to analyse screws over 360°, and automatically combines several images in order to determine both part optical axis and measurements of the features, the latest product evolution enables 3D part reconstruction and 3D measurements. “By the appropriate synchronisation of its multiple sensors, and by the combination of the full area images, the 3D software engine of the Optoflash can easily reconstruct the workpiece in a 3D format,” underlines Marposs. “The 3D measurement not only performs better than a traditional 2D projection, but the 3D surface reconstruction enables the possibility of extensive part validation, since the 3D measurements are based on thousands of points from the surface of the workpiece. For this reason, irregular part profiles, interrupted surfaces, or threads, are perfect applications where the Optoflash and its 3D engine gives distinctive performance with respect to the traditional approaches.”

On top of the performance, the 3D functionality of the Optoflash also boosts the ease of use. After each measuring cycle, the workpiece is visualised on the display of the product in 3D format, together with the measurement results from the cycle. The operator can navigate the 3D of the workpiece directly from the touch display of the Optoflash and they can easily review each inspection point by its images or they can immediately identify and locate any incorrect part feature detected during the cycle.

Marposs adds: “The standard measurement toolkit can easily solve any of the most typical measurement problems. These include dimensional, position and form measurements – both in static and dynamic mode. The library also includes thread analysis – maximum and minimum diameter, pitch diameter, pitch value, thread angle, thread linearity, as well as total thread length.”