Puffin Automation News and Press Releases

Engine Ring Inspection System

Eden Prairie, MN (February 17th, 2015) - Automatic Vision Inspection Configuration for up to 1500 Part Variations. Custom Machine Vision solution for detecting surface defects on metal alloy engine rings. Because of increasing demand for their products a manufacturer of automotive engine ring parts needed to upgrade their existing inspection technologies to meet the higher production demands. The system had to be capable of inspecting up to 1500 part variations. Along with the large variation of parts there is a need for the parts to be inspected for tiny defects on all surfaces and for accurate repeatability in that inspection. Material handling and change over can also be expensive and complicated with such large part variations. Puffin Automation of Eden Prairie, MN (www.puffinautomation.com ) was tasked with creating a system that would inspect an engine ring on all four surfaces, have a changeover of less than 1 minu...

Machine Vision Verifies Printed Codes At 800 Cans Per Minute

Eden Prairie, MN (August 28th, 2013) - A food processor fills an average of 800 cans per minute with a wide range of products such as vegetables, fruit and soup. An important challenge for the company is ensuring that the code printed on the bottom of each can matches the product in the can. A mismatch runs the risk of creating an unhappy customer or, even worse, an allergic reaction. In the past, there were concerns that operators might accidentally set up the printer to generate the wrong code or that the printer used to apply the code on the can might fail to produce a readable code. These concerns have been overcome with the installation of a machine vision system that reads the code on the bottom of the can in just 60 milliseconds, enough time to reject cans with incorrect or unreadable codes. The vision system uses pattern matching to orient the code regardless of its radial position then uses optical character recognit...