Optical Inspection System With Integrated Laser Processing For Stamped Parts Launched
Jenoptik has introduced at the Blechexpo in Stuttgart, Germany its PSS-40/LCLW inspection station, which optimizes the manufacturing of stamped parts with integrated laser cutting and laser welding.
The PSS-40/LCLW inspection and sorting station enables automated optical inspection of punched strips as well as uninterrupted removal of defective parts in just one system thanks to cameras, software analysis and lasers. To this end, Jenoptik has further developed its PSS-40 standard inspection cell, which is already established on the market, and integrated fully automated laser cutting and laser welding into the inspection station.
Customers in the stamping industry can thus inspect strip stampings without interruption or the sort out rejected parts efficiently and fully automatically. In its compact, space-saving design, the new PSS-40/LCLW also reduces interruption times in the die cutting shop as well as the changeover times when changing articles.
“All-in-One” Testing Station
Jenoptik’s inspection stations
enable 100 percent inspection of almost all metric and attribute inspection characteristics. The software, developed in-house, detects and marks parts that are out of tolerance so that they can be separated out in subsequent processes. Until now, the separation and subsequent joining of the carrier strip has been carried out by mechanical separation and thermal joining, which usually requires the manual or semi-automatic intervention of an operator resulting in a production standstill for several minutes.
The integrated laser processing in the PSS-40/LCLW replaces these manual or semi-automatic process steps and enables uninterrupted stamping. This is because the marked bad part is cut out by laser cutting without wear within the inspection station. The then loose ends of the punched carrier strip are also brought together with high precision within the PSS unit and reconnected by laser welding. Thanks to the flexibly adjustable laser beam and the free beam guidance, even component positions that are difficult to access can be reached. The welding result is verified by a fully automatic tensile test with the welded punched strip having a very high strength.
For more information: www.jenoptik.com
