A relay manufacturer implements a machine vision system for higher quality. This system automatically measures the distance between the contacts of the relays, which were ­gathered manually up to now. With the new system the producer achieves less waste and tripled the productivity.

In the 19th century when people spoke about relays, they meant something totally different: stations, where stagecoaches changed their horses. With the advance of telegraphy the electromechanical devices got their name from these stations. Over long distances data transmission required a relay to amplify the signal every 18 miles. Today the technology is not used any more for communication; however, relays are still applied: in automobile applications, as circuit breaker or time delay circuits.
The efficient functionality of the relays depends on the correctly dimensioned distance between coil and armature and even more between the closed-circuit contacts. To gauge these contact gaps, a relay manufacturer recently installed a machine vision system in his production plant in the Czech Republic. Previously the employees mea-sured the contacts manually. With the new measuring system from the Austrian company weitblick systems the relay quality increased and the waste could be reduced. Rainer Reisinger, one of the CEOs of weitblick systems, sums up the success of the machine vision system: "The automatic system tripled the productivity of our Czech client."
The key technical challenges in this project were, according to Reisinger, the variation in the shapes and the very specular surfaces of the relay contacts. „It was only with the help of modern machine vision components and a special lens and illumination system that the customer‘s requirements for precision and reliability could be fulfilled," explains Reisinger.

Close Collaboration
During the development weitblick systems worked closely together with Stemmer Imaging, the German machine vision specialist. Reisinger remembers the beginning of this cooperation: „The relay manufacturer approached Stemmer Imaging with the task and the sales department there referred the enquiry to us." The customer was particularly keen to get a complete solution from one single provider. "That we could guarantee, because we sourced all the components we need from one supplier: Stemmer Imaging", adds the CEO.
Both companies joined forces to select the optimal machine vision components for this application. In thorough feasibility tests at Stemmer Imaging the engineers identified the components to achieve a high quality image of the relay contacts. The resulting set-up is comprised of a LED spotlight with a suitable lighting control system from CCS, a high-end telecentric lens from Sill with coaxial light coupling for the LED spotlight and a Dalsa Genie GigE Vision camera. Weitblick systems uses the flexibility of the CVB Camera Suite from Stemmer Imaging's Common Vision Blox software platform for image capture and camera management. The image data is evaluated using software incorporating its own user interface and developed entirely in-house by weitblick systems.
Reisinger sums up: „The customized system has now been installed three times for this application and is being used successfully at three separate locations. According to our customer, the systems are very fast and reliable and allow 100 % monitoring of the products as required."

Successful Cooperation of Two Companies
The young Austrian company weitblick systems GmbH is specialist in the development of systems for quality control during production. The company recently won the „Schrittmacher“ (pace maker) prize for innovation which is awarded annually by the regional Chamber of Commerce together with an Austrian magazine.
Stemmer Imaging, Europe’s biggest machine vision technology provider and developer of the software platform Common Vision Blox, offers its customers all the image processing components and consulting services needed to build reliable machine vision solutions for almost any industry. Stemmer Imaging customers can profit from a unique range of image processing products from leading manufacturers.