Vision Sensor Print on Glass Jars

In today's modern production and manufacturing lines, maintaining consistent and above all accurate production lines is paramount to success.

In this application, a customer wanted to inspect glass jars that should have a clearly displayed date and batch code around the top section.

As the print is applied on the glass jar by an inkjet printer, there have been occasions where the jet blocks and the code is not applied.

Incorrect labelling can be extremely costly for manufacturers and in some cases can mean loss of business and a recall of product lines. Given the nature of the product, the whole batch of product lines would have to recalled by the end user (supermarket) and end up costing around £40,000

Rather than recall the entire production line, More Control devised the following vision sensor application that could remedy this print labelling issue.

The checker camera that was used offered a cost effective viable solution for checking each print jar, for under £2000 to inspect the whole line.

To set up the inspection system, there were three regions of inspection that the camera would check.

When the ink is applied there is a large amount of contrast between the ink and the reflection of the Checker's light source from the glass.

When there is no print, or only a partial print is applied, the Checker will generate a reject signal.

This solution offered a low cost option in comparison to a full OCR (optical character recognition) system

Top Image: Print detected

Bottom Image: No Print

If you have a vision detection application that you wish to have designed or developed feel free to contact us, and one of our technical engineers will provide a consultation to determine the ideal vision application for you.