Automatic glass defect inspection system

Different types of glass have different quality requirements. Taking this as a starting point, the LineScanner has been equipped with a new technical function – the sensitivity setting. Here, slide controls are used to store individual quality settings that are then drawn on as a new quality attribute. The new function makes it very easy to specify which defects are to be made visible to the operator with the help of the LineScanner and which are not. This revolutionary new development now makes the LineScanner as easy to operate as a smartphone.

LineScanners from Softsolution have been equipped with 16-bit technology as standard since the beginning of 2016. This innovative technology makes it possible to use considerably more grey shades (65536 instead of 256) than before. It allows defects to be detected even more easily, in particular in dark glass (from 15% light transmission), meaning that it is no longer necessary to define different assessment criteria for different levels of glass transparency. It is not just the installation of the LineScanner that has been made significantly easier for the operator, but also maintenance – quality degradation as a result of dust in the working environment is a thing of the past.

This technology can initially only be installed for vertical production lines. Overall bending is checked for in this case at a specific, configurable height of the glass. This function from Softsolution sets completely new standards since curved glass can cause considerable problems in a fully automated insulation glass production line (for example, cullets in the press, faulty sensor information, loss in the level of gas filling through “loosening” of the glass element at places along the frame, etc.). A sensor measures the distance between the individual sheet of glass and the sensor itself at intervals of 10-20 mm in the direction of transport. The maximum measurement tolerance is +/- 0.4 mm.

Data capture and analysis made easy. Thanks to the archive, scanned glass items can be easily and quickly stored and archived in a MySQL database. This feature documents and archives all the work processes, quality settings and every single detail pertaining to a glass item. Furthermore, all the required data are available for subsequent analysis. Die LineScanner archiving software is a standalone application that can be used to search for specific glass items in the database (for example by customer, barcode, order number, line item number, etc.) and to then provide a visual representation of them. 

Available as an option to the LineScanner, the EDM system is able to give you exact dimension information of your piece of glass. Accuracy +/- 0,25 mm independent of the glass length. No other system within the glass industry - without any high accurate and very expensive transportation solution - allows to check the dimensions of a glass with such an accuracy. Something you can only find for the LineScanner powered by SOFTSOLUTION.