Machine vision speeds syringe assembly

AVTEX (Burlington, CT, USA; www.avtex.net) has customized a two-machine syringe assembly process coupled with a packaging system built by Arthur G. Russell (Bristol, CT, USA; www.arthurgrussell.com). The machine-vision stations on the two machines perform a series of inspection operations such as ensuring the presence and location of components in as few as 50 ms.

The two machines have a total of 17 individual stations, including five that use vision. Overall production rate is 480 syringes per minute. To develop the two machines, AVTEX engineers used custom lens lights, Sony (Park Ridge, NJ, USA; www.sony.com/videocameras) XC-HR70 cameras, and Cognex (Natick, MA, USA; www.cognex.com) VisionPro software. The PatMax pattern-matching tool was used to locate the part and report its orientation to the machine control system.

“The key to maintaining the stations’ accuracy at ultrahigh speed is vision tools with the intelligence to ignore noncritical variations in appearance while focusing on the critical features that determine a product’s acceptability,” says Mark Granahan, president of AVTEX. A more complete system description is available on the Vision Systems Design web site.