Senior Sales Manager at BLM GROUP | Helping companies in the adoption of new technologies. Machine finder: I can spot the perfect one for your needs!
📢 Let's talk about: On line and off line inspection of laser cut holes and slots on 3D parts. The application of 3D laser to hot stamped car parts has made necessary to have a full (100%) guarantee that holes and slots are really there when the part leaves the laser machine. It may happen, in fact, that a hole is only partially cut or, randomly and very seldom, not cut at all by the machine. If this happens and no further control is made, a component can reach the car assembly line and might be impossible to mount on the body & white. Of course the consequences may be quite severe. 😓 😎 Some manufacturers have introduced vision systems inside the working head that can collect images of the hole just after it was cut. In our laser cutting cells, we refer to this system as “Active Scrap Detection.” If you’re curious about how it works, feel free to reach out to me. 😉 Compared to the traditional systems that use the capacitive sensor to sense the absence of the material in the hole they have the advantage to take a lot less time for the confirmation. In fact, the sensor has to move towards the center of the hole from the cutting trajectory in order to “understand” that the material is not there any longer. These movements take a lot longer than a vision system or a beam reflected eventually by the surface of the slug and the timing should be multiplied by the number of holes in the program. 😰 Moreover, in the case of a hole only partially cut with a trajectory almost fully completed but still with the slug connected with a micro joint but, say, at 45° from the surface, there is a risk that the sensor does not detect the slug at all while it is there. In the past years we have also seen some attempts, not always successful to check the whole working area with one or more cameras to try to match the geometry of the cut part with the surface definition coming from the CAD. Finally a solution which seems to be simple and reliable but needs some manual manipulation of the part uses an “inspection tool” which have pins in the locations where the holes are. Every single part is inserted into the tool at the end of the cutting operation and if the part does not fit into the fixture the machine is not allowed to continue cutting. #laserCutting #metalWorking #automotive #laserProcessing #laser
