Robin2:
I wonder how many masts the Panamax ship has?
...R
Hmm. It's a point, certainly.
I just wondered as to the purpose of the "assembly line"
The way the OP phrased the original and follow-up posts put me very much in mind of a packing assembly line.
Fill a box or three with stuff, close the box(es) and as a final afterthought, place something (a bag of nuts n bolts, for example) on top. That final something is what keeps getting missed and customers complain at the other end when they receive the kit form Panamax bulk carrier and can't bolt the masts into place
As i said we manufacture about 70 - 80 assemblies in a day and operators will miss a particular part that goes on top of the assembly.
I want to create a arduino project which will be installed on side of the assembly line. The assemblies will come in front of that in a specific orientation and if a that part is not present then the operator will be flagged by a LED light or a sound.
From your description I would say that a PC with camera could digitize the image of an engine and compare that to the image of an engine with the part on top and red flag non-matches. Each engine imaged would be mounted the same way to see the same area from the same angle and distance.
I worked in and for fabrication shops before. We had go/no-go guages for various cuts. You might get away with a piece of wood that on one side would fit right over the top part and if you flip the piece over it would fit (like, be even nearly level) only when the part is not there. Using the guage would be the last step for the operator that fits that part. You really don't need tech wowsa to manage your problem.
Vision systems should do what you ask, but will not verify if an IC is installed backwards.
An operatioins check of components would be a more through test.
If you look at some circuit boards, some have what appear to be random pads. Often they are test points
It might know that there's a capacitor but it will not know the size the capacitor or it may see that there is a pull-up resistor in place but not know the rating of that resistor.
Generally speaking IC chips have a white bar a half moon on the end maybe a dimple Over the number one pin or a corner cut out.
Quality of the software for the vision system would need to be set so that if you change the supliers and your parts changed for some reason it would be able to tell the difference.
It Would need to know the difference between a 555 and an ATtiny 8 Pin IC
I still like the idea of getting a guy a shirt that says INSPECTOR on it unless we are talking about huge automated systems that churn out thousands of units per run.
The shirt might say QC (quality control) and in places where hardhats are worn they get a certain color helmet. And btw, I've known quite a few female QC inspectors, it's not exactly heavy work.
Dave, these things are parts attached to the top of an engine in an assembly line. It would be daft production management to have the worker picking between componments at that time. Every station should be as cut and dried as possible.
