This animation shows the mode of operation of the laser scanning system within a PMJ odd-form placement machine. The laser and sensor are seen on the first slide positioned between the feeder and the board. The detection process in the next slide shows a multipin connector moving across the infrared beam. At the end of the movement, it can be seen that one of the leads is bent.
On the next slide we see first the expected signal fed back to the controller, which is the response of the detector to the light beam ‘chopped’ by the component leads as they pass through the beam. The expected signal is a regular series of pulses. By contrast, the actual signal has one pulse longer than the others, and this is caused by the bent lead, which interferes with the light beam for a longer period.
In the final animation, we see the laser scanner used for a moulded body component. In this case, it is a disk ceramic suppression component, which has one lead on each side of the body, staggered to create a radial package. When this is passed through the beam, there is an offset between the central point of the two leads and the gripper, and this is reflected in the difference between the expected signal for the leads crossing the beam and the actual signal. The distance in time between expected and actual signal corresponds to the physical offset between gripper and component.