Nowadays, the frequency of car replacement is getting faster and faster, and the needs of car customers have become more complicated. Refined product classification has become the most important development topic of car products. Facing the development of the industry, Molex is transforming into a total solution provider.
In the process of this transformation, connector production should not only meet the needs of diversified product lines, but also meet the requirements of intelligent production. To this end, the production line must achieve rapid switching and interconnection, as well as ensure stability, accuracy, high output, and easy maintenance, which puts high requirements on the production and testing technology of automotive connectors at the Molex Chengdu plant.
Molex Chengdu factory connector production line is a relatively complex automated assembly line, which is mainly composed of 5 assembly machines (feeding machine; Cover assembly; seal block and seal ring assembly; subdivision terminal Cover assembly; inspection and robotic packaging), can Meet the production of more than 100 products in 5 series.
Throughout the entire production line, inspection requirements are ubiquitous throughout the entire production process. "For example, from the loading machine's HSG damage, foreign object detection, whether the material number is correct, etc., it must be accurately and quickly achieved by the detection equipment," said the technical engineer of the Molex Chengdu plant.
According to reports, the most difficult challenge for this production line inspection is "the punching position inspection of the fourth machine." In production, because different types of products require different punching sequence numbers, this will cause the problem of variable product punching and cannot ensure the correctness of the punching sequence of each product and the accuracy of the position. "The most difficult product has 80 holes," the technical engineer at Molex's Chengdu plant emphasized.
"Inspection equipment not only has to face so many and complex product quality inspection requirements, but also to ensure that it can be quickly switched." The technical engineer of the Molex Chengdu plant pointed out the inspection challenges faced, "In addition, the inspection equipment of the production line must For communication, it is necessary to upload and download the specific testing standards of the current products with the host computer. "
In order to solve the intractable inspection problems, Molex Chengdu factory carefully selected two visual inspection systems for verification and evaluation after investigation. These two detection technologies are based on PC-Base low-cost vision system and Cognex's In-Sight 5705 vision system.
During the evaluation, technical engineers at the Molex Chengdu plant found that although the PC-Base low-cost vision system provides a full set of integrated hardware and software, users only need to be familiar with the settings of the hardware and software parameters to configure and use, "However, during the use process We found that the low-cost PC-Base-based vision system has a lot of parameter settings and dazzling software options, which requires a long time to explore and familiarize the engineer for the first contact. "The technical engineer of the Molex Chengdu plant said," And if When the ambient light changes, the position of the workpiece is not fixed, the shape of the workpiece is uncertain, or the material changes, the PC-Base detection system cannot achieve the relevant functions stably and effectively. "
After denying the low-cost PC-Base vision system, technical engineers turned to the In-Sight 5705 vision system. They were pleasantly surprised to find that the In-Sight 5705 vision system can perfectly solve the detection difficulties faced, including all quality inspection requirements such as HSG loss, seal block deformation, hole plugging, assembly error, mixing, color error, etc. The batch difference in the production process.
"In-Sight 5705 vision system has a high degree of integration, loose software configuration, easier to use and faster deployment." Technical engineers have really seen the convenience and production level brought by the In-Sight 5705 vision system. "The system not only has the algorithms and powerful software tools we are familiar with, but also has a variety of programming modes. Both flexible spreadsheets and Easybuilder can be used to design the programs we need, with a high degree of freedom. And custom functions. "
In addition, after applying the In-Sight 5705 vision system, the most difficult problem of product punching change is solved. "Binary coding can solve this problem, especially the detection of 80 holes." The technical engineer of Molex Chengdu factory explained, "Through the communication between the PC host computer and the camera, and between the camera and the camera, the All 80 holes are coded in the order of the holes according to the binary code to ensure the real-time information of the product. The camera obtains the punching sequence and material number information, then decodes the binary information, and then communicates between the cameras to ensure that the detection information and the host computer The information sent matches, thus ensuring the correct punching sequence and position accuracy of each product. "
