Painting and Paint Inspection

Measuring and inspection systems for automotive production

Micro Epsilon provides systems and units of a very high investment level for industrial coating technology applications in the automobile industry. They improve both the efficiency and quality of the coating process itself, as well as the surface inspection of painted objects.

Systems for automotive production

The requirements for the quality of painted attachments are as high as the quality requirements for the entire car body. The new reflectCONTROL surface inspection system is designed for fast and high-resolution surface inspection of flat components. It recognizes and classifies the defects in an objective and repeatable way. Due to the large measuring field, trays can be measured in just a single capture.

Advantages:

  • Objective 100% inspection of components
  • Detection of defects after painting or with the inspection of incoming goods
  • Cost reduction due to reduced defect slippage
  • Reduction of rework

Inspection parameters:

  • Resolution from 70 µm for the detection of the smallest of deviations
  • Almost color-independent detection rate from 0.6 sec.
  • Measuring field: 245×116 mm2 / 830×330 mm2
  • Stationary or on the robot (independent of the robot type)

Fully automatic surface inspection of painted car bodies

A perfectly painted surface is every car’s staple feature, and thus represents a very emotional measure of quality for the customer. To optimize this surface, two to four robot-assisted systems (depending on the cycle time) of the reflectCONTROL PSS 8005.D type allow objective in-line inspection of each car body. The defects are measured laterally and in depth, and classified on the basis of catalogs and optionally marked by the automationControl 8005 PSS 8005.MQ system using ATENSOR-LS1 technology*. This way, follow-up work and process improvements can be performed precisely as required and easily.

Benefits:

  • Objective 100% inspection of all the vehicles manufactured
  • Employees can concentrate on remedying critical defects and not on identifying them
  • Detection of defects immediately after the painting booth, when they can still be easily reworked
  • Cutting costs by reducing defects
  • Reducing the number of rework lines

Material parameters:

  • Defect sizes of from 10 µm, lateral
  • Local 3D-reconstruction allows the automation of follow-up work
  • Detection rate that is practically independent of color
  • Not dependent on the robot type
*ATENSOR LS1 technology = robotic process automation for products with a high number of versions, which makes manual robot programming impossible. With the ATENSOR-LS1 (LS1 = lot size 1), robot programmes are dynamically generated on the basis of measurements. The programmes are then loaded and run in the robot memory.
Special features:
  • Inspection time <1 s per robot position
  • Detection rate >95% for all relevant defect types
  • Reproducible inspection, regardless of the personal constitution of human auditors

The MTS 8201.LLT is equipped with laser triangulation scanners which means measurements are unaffected by the surface properties of the target material. Scaling or mirror effects of the metal surface are therefore absorbed. Furthermore, compared to point sensors, the system offers higher accuracy and a larger mouth width. The O-frame shaped mechanical system provides a temperature-compensated frame that compensates for any thermal changes of the measurement frame using additional sensor technology. The measurement line is arranged vertically to the material flow, enabling the system to cope with any lateral strip tilting.