JP2003215054A - Automatic inspection apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an automatic inspection apparatus which is provided with compactness not available in conventional cases and which is superior in operability and workability. <P>SOLUTION: The automatic inspection apparatus comprises an inspection apparatus mainframe which inspects a continuously conveyed specimen and an enclosure which is arranged so as to substantially surround the mainframe. The apparatus is constituted in such a way that a control mechanism part which performs at least an operation for an inspection and an operation to sort a nondefective from a defective is housed inside the enclosure, that at least one face of a body wall part constituting the enclosure is provided with a door-shaped member capable of being opened and closed, that the door-shaped member has a function as an operating panel, that a monitor screen which can visually confirm an inspected content is mounted on the operating panel and that a notebook-type personal computer which forms a part of the control mechanism part and in which a personal computer mainframe, a keyboard and a display are integrated is mounted. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to, for example, an automatic inspection device for a transport container, and more particularly to a door capable of opening and closing a part of a casing substantially surrounding an inspection device main body for inspecting a transported container. The present invention relates to an automatic inspection device in which a notebook type personal computer is incorporated as an MMI (Man Machine Interface) in the shape of a member, and the compactness and operability of the device are significantly improved.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a bottle inspection apparatus, which is a preferred example of a conventional automatic inspection apparatus, the main mechanical portion is, for example,
(1) An inspection apparatus main body whose main function is an operation of handling a container, which is an object to be inspected, and capturing a predetermined image,
(2) There is an inspection control mechanism unit that performs image processing on the obtained image to select defective products, and (3) a power board (power unit) for supplying power. The inspection apparatus main body, the inspection control mechanism unit, and the power board are generally laid out independently of each other.

In addition, a control device which constitutes a part of the inspection control mechanism unit and performs arithmetic processing is a "data program system" in which the operation directly changes the setting by operating a switch, that is, a digital dip switch is used for data Information management, such as changing the installation value, was handled by hardware as well as machine operation.

However, in recent years, as a control device (so-called computer) that constitutes a part of the inspection control mechanism section and performs arithmetic processing has been rapidly miniaturized and has high performance, the control device has been changed to an MMI (Man. It has been strongly demanded to improve the operability, workability and compactness by incorporating it as a machine interface into an inspection device.

[0005]

However, in order to improve the operability, workability, etc., the study on the construction of the inspection device system is not sufficient, and the compactness, the operability, and the workability are excellent. , The proposal of the construction of the inspection device system which is excellent in appearance has not been realized yet.

The present invention was devised under the circumstances as described above, and an object thereof is to provide an automatic inspection device having a compactness which has never been seen, and which is remarkably excellent in operability and workability. Especially.

[0007]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention provides an inspection apparatus main body for inspecting an object to be inspected that is continuously conveyed, and substantially surrounds the inspection apparatus main body. An automatic inspection device having a housing arranged in the housing, and a control mechanism unit for performing at least an operation for inspection and an operation for selecting a good product and a defective product are housed in the housing. And a door-shaped member that can be opened and closed is provided on at least one surface of the body wall constituting the casing,
This door-shaped member has a function as an operation panel, and the operation panel is equipped with a monitor screen for visually confirming the inspection contents, forms a part of the control mechanism unit, and has a personal computer body and a keyboard. A notebook personal computer with an integrated display is mounted.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the notebook personal computer is vertically mounted in an open state.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the notebook personal computer is an MMI (Man Machi
ne Interface).

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the inspection apparatus main body is provided with a sequential feeding mechanism section for individually and sequentially transporting the inspected objects to the inspection position, and for obtaining information on the inspection quality determination at the inspection position. The inspection information obtaining means and the separating and conveying means for separating and conveying the object to be inspected, which is judged to be good or bad based on the obtained inspection information.

In a preferred aspect of the present invention, data necessary for inspection is input to the personal computer in advance, and based on the input data, the inspection information obtained is analyzed to make a pass / fail judgment. Composed.

[0012] As a preferred aspect of the present invention, a carry-in port and a carry-out port for the transported object to be detected are formed on both side surfaces of the body wall of the casing.

As a preferred mode of the present invention, the rear portion of the progressive feeder has a star wheel for sequentially rotatably transporting an object to be inspected carried in from an inlet, while sequentially gripping it.
The inspection information obtaining means is an image pickup means for capturing the shape of a predetermined portion of the inspection object, and the separating and conveying means makes the separation position of the inspection object from the rotating star wheel different, and after separation. The conveyance routes are made different, and the inspection object is configured to be classified into a good product and a defective product.

As a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a front wall portion, a rear wall portion, and both side wall portions of the body wall of the casing have a pair of door-shaped members which can be opened and closed vertically or horizontally. One of the door-shaped members located in the front portion is configured as the operation panel.

Further, as a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the housing is configured to house a power board for supplying power.

[0016]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the automatic inspection apparatus of the present invention will be described below.

FIG. 1 shows a schematic front view of the automatic inspection apparatus 1 of the present invention, FIG. 2 shows a schematic plan view (top view) of the automatic inspection apparatus 1 of the present invention, and FIG. A schematic left side view of the automatic inspection device 1 of the present invention is shown. Also, FIG.
FIG. 4A is a schematic front view of a door-shaped member that functions as an operation panel, which is a main part of the present invention, and FIG.
A schematic side view of (a) is shown.

In the automatic inspection apparatus 1 of the present invention, an example of a suitable inspection object to be inspected will be described as a bottle container after cleaning (hereinafter, simply referred to as "inspection container"). As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the inspection container is continuously conveyed in the automatic inspection device 1 from the right direction to the left direction in the drawing.

The automatic inspection device 1 of the present invention comprises an inspection device main body 20 for inspecting an inspection container which is an object to be inspected, and a housing 50 arranged so as to substantially surround the inspection device main body 20. It is equipped with.

In the embodiment of the present invention, the housing 50
Among them, for example, the control mechanism unit is housed in the upper housing unit 58. The control mechanism section controls the operation of the inspection apparatus main body 20, and more specifically, is installed to perform an operation for inspection and an operation for selecting a non-defective product and a defective product. This is equivalent to the control equipment housed in the so-called conventional control panel (box),
Conventionally, it is installed separately from the main body of the device. The control mechanism section is not limited to the upper storage section 58 of the housing 50, and may be installed in the lower storage section 59. It is also a preferable embodiment to house a power board for supplying power together in the housing 50.

Further, in the embodiment of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 1, a pair of door-like members 51a, 51 capable of opening a double door is provided on the front surface of the body wall constituting the casing 50.
b is provided, and one of these is a door-shaped member 51a
However, it has a function as an operation panel. That is, an enlarged front view of the door-shaped member 51a functioning as an operation panel is shown in FIG.
As shown in (a), as shown in this figure, a monitor screen 60 for visually confirming the inspection contents is mounted in this panel, and a personal computer body 71, a keyboard 72, and a display 73 are provided. The integrated notebook personal computer 70 is mounted vertically in an open state.

The monitor screen 60 is used, for example, for initial setting of inspection conditions using an inspection camera and for monitoring during inspection.

The personal computer 70 is also used.
MMI (Man Machine Int
erface). That is, the personal computer 70 is preliminarily input with data and the like necessary for the inspection, and based on the input data and the like, the obtained inspection information is analyzed, and the calculation of the quality judgment is performed.

In this way, a part of the housing is used as an operation panel, and an MMI (Man Machine Interface) is provided in this panel.
By incorporating the notebook type personal computer 70 as described above, it is possible to realize an inspection apparatus that is compact (space-saving), has excellent visibility, and has good operability.

Further, as shown in FIG. 4 (particularly (b)), the operation panel (51a) is provided with a mouse operation table 75 via a hinge 75a, and this mouse operation table 75 is provided. When the personal computer 70 is not used, it is housed so as to cover the personal computer body 71 and the keyboard 72. Then, when the personal computer 70 is used, as shown in FIG. 4B, the operator falls down in front of the operator to form a horizontal plate, and the mouse can be operated on the horizontal plate. Hinges 63 for opening and closing the door are provided above and below the right end of the operation panel (51a) (FIG. 4A). With such a mechanism, workability such as input can be improved.

Further, in the embodiment of the present invention, the inspection device main body 20 which is a main part of the driving device is provided with a progressive feeding mechanism portion for individually and sequentially transporting the inspection object to the inspection position and an inspection position. An inspection information acquisition unit for obtaining information on the inspection pass / fail determination and a separation / conveyance unit for separating and conveying the inspected object for which the inspection is determined based on the acquired inspection information are provided. That is, the progressive feeding mechanism unit is, for example, as shown in FIG.
As shown in FIG. 5, a star wheel 21 (for simplification, the shape is shown as a circle in the drawing is shown to simplify the shape of the inspection container that has been carried in from the carry-in port 11 through, for example, a single line of the linear transport path 13 while sequentially gripping the container. ) Is included.

A suction cup is usually provided at a place where the inspection container is fitted and held in the wheel groove of the star wheel 21. The inspection information acquisition unit is an imaging unit that captures the form of a predetermined portion of the inspection container, and specifically,
The mouth top surface inspection camera 31 for inspecting the top surface of the container shown in FIG. 2 and the bottom surface inspection camera 32 for inspecting the bottom surface of the container are included. The containers, which have been processed by the images captured by these cameras and determined to be non-defective, are transferred from the star wheel 21 to the linear transport path 14 in a row, and then transported to the carry-out port 15. On the other hand, the defective container determined as the defective product is placed on the turntable 25 having a detaching position different from that of the non-defective product, and the defective container is excluded. In this way, the separating / conveying means for the non-defective product and the defective product makes the desorption position of the container from the rotating star wheel 21 different, and makes the conveyance path after desorption different so that the good product and the defective product of the container are separated. It is designed to sort.

The carry-in port 11 and the carry-out port 15 for the object to be detected are generally formed on both side surfaces of the body wall of the housing 50 as shown in FIG.

As shown in FIG. 2, the housing 50 according to the present invention has a pair of door-like members 5 which can be opened in a double door structure on the front surface, the rear surface, and both side surfaces of the body wall.
1a, 51b; 52a, 52b; 53a, 53b; 54
A structure having a and 54b is preferable. One of the door-shaped members 51a located on the front portion is configured as the operation panel. By providing a pair of door-like members that can be opened and closed vertically or horizontally on each of the body wall surfaces, for example, there is a merit that the bottle confirmation operation at the time of test operation, device remodeling work, and maintenance can be easily performed. . Further, from the viewpoint of safety, it is preferable to provide a safety mechanism that automatically stops the device when one of the doors is opened.

A preferred inspection operation example (bottle inspection example) of the above-described automatic inspection apparatus 1 of the present invention will be described more specifically below.

For example, the empty bottle (inspection container) discharged from the washing machine is transferred from the multi-row accumulation conveyor installed upstream of this apparatus to the single-row conveyor, and in the single-row conveyance state, the inspection apparatus 1 Is supplied to. The empty bottle thus supplied is transferred to the star wheel 21 installed inside the inspection device from the end point of the single-row conveyor (straight line conveying path 13) and is carried into the inspection device. Each groove of the star wheel 21 is provided with a suction cup (not shown) by negative pressure for wrapping each sky bottle, and this suction cup enables stable transport of the sky bottle. There is.

That is, the suction-held empty bottle is conveyed to the position where the mouth top inspection camera 31 is installed as the star wheel 21 rotates. At this position, an irradiation device for irradiating the upper part of the bottle with an infrared LED is installed. Then, the mouth top inspection camera 31 installed on the upper part of the illumination while illuminating the bottle mouth portion with the infrared LED irradiation.
The bottle mouth is imaged by. By processing this picked-up image, the control mechanism unit can detect, for example, a white residual foreign matter due to poor cleaning, a chipped portion, and the like.

Further, with the rotation of the star wheel 21, the bottle is conveyed to the position of the bottom inspection camera 32.
In this position, the infrared LED irradiation is installed in the lower part of the bottle bottom, and the LED irradiation is performed from the lower side toward the bottle bottom. Then, the bottom inspection camera 32 installed on the upper portion of the bottle mouth images the bottle bottom from the inside of the bottle. By processing this captured image, the control mechanism unit can detect opaque residual foreign matter and the like due to poor cleaning.

The empty bottle that has passed through the bottom surface inspection camera 32 follows the rotation of the star wheel 21 and the good bottle unloading path 14
Be transported to. Then, as a result of the mouth top inspection and the bottom inspection, the empty bottle judged by the control mechanism section as a good bottle (good bottle) is a suction cup at a place where it meets the good bottle carry-out path 14 (straight line carry path 14). Negative pressure is released (empty bottle is free), single-row conveyor (straight conveyor path 1
4) is discharged to the side. The discharged empty bottle is transported to, for example, a downstream filling facility.

On the other hand, as a result of the above inspection, the bottle which is judged as the defective bottle by the control mechanism section passes through the good bottle unloading section (the straight conveying path 14), and the defective bottle unloading section (for example, the turn) located further ahead. It is transported to the table 25). Here, the negative pressure of the suction cup is released, and the empty bottle that has become free is placed on the defective bottle unloading section. The discharged defective bottle is conveyed to a bottle washing machine for rewashing dirt and the like in the bottle, for example.

[0036]

As described above, according to the present invention, there is provided an inspection apparatus main body for inspecting continuously conveyed inspection objects, and a casing arranged so as to substantially surround the inspection apparatus main body. And a control mechanism unit for performing at least an operation for inspection and an operation for selecting a non-defective product and a defective product, the automatic inspection device having: At least one surface of the body wall constituting the body is provided with a door-shaped member that can be opened and closed, and this door-shaped member has a function as an operation panel, and the inspection content can be visually confirmed on the operation panel. It has a monitor screen, a part of the control mechanism, and a laptop personal computer with a computer, keyboard and display integrated. The equipped, moreover operability, extremely excellent effect that the workability is excellent and remarkably expressed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic front view of an automatic inspection device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic plan (top) view of the automatic inspection device of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic left side view of the automatic inspection device of the present invention.

FIG. 4 (a) is a schematic front view of a door-shaped member that functions as an operation panel, which is a main part of the present invention, and FIG. 4 (b) is (a).
It is a schematic side view of.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Automatic inspection device 20 ... Inspection device body 51a ... Door-shaped member (operation panel) 60 ... Monitor screen 70 ... Notebook type personal computer

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    F term (reference) 2G051 AA12 AA13 AA15 AA28 AB15                       BA20 CA03 CA04 CA07 DA01                       DA02 DA06 DA13 EA14 EB01                       EB02 FA10                 2G058 AA02 CB01 GA02 GA20 GD07                       GE00 GE02

Claims (9)

[Claims] 1. An automatic inspection apparatus comprising: an inspection apparatus main body for inspecting an object to be inspected that is continuously conveyed; and a casing arranged so as to substantially surround the inspection apparatus main body. A control mechanism unit for performing at least an operation for inspection and an operation for selecting a non-defective product and a defective product is housed in the housing, and at least a body wall constituting the housing is included. A door-shaped member that can be opened and closed is provided on one surface, and this door-shaped member has a function as an operation panel, and a monitor screen on which the inspection contents can be visually confirmed is attached to the operation panel, and a control mechanism is also provided. An automatic inspection device that is equipped with a laptop personal computer, which forms a part of the unit and has a personal computer, a keyboard, and a display integrated. 2. The automatic inspection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the notebook personal computer is mounted vertically in an open state. 3. The automatic inspection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the notebook personal computer functions as an MMI (Man Machine Interface). 4. The inspection apparatus main body comprises a sequential feeding mechanism section for individually and sequentially transporting the inspected objects to the inspection position, and inspection information acquisition means for obtaining information on the inspection quality determination at the inspection position. 4. The automatic inspection apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a separation / conveyance unit that separates and conveys the inspection target object that has been judged to be good or bad based on the acquired inspection information. 5. The personal computer is previously input with data necessary for inspection, and based on the input data, the inspection information obtained is analyzed to make a pass / fail judgment. The automatic inspection device according to any one of 1. 6. The automatic apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a carry-in port and a carry-out port for the transported object to be detected are formed on both side surfaces of the body wall of the housing. Inspection device. 7. The rear portion of the progressive feeder has a star wheel for rotating and transporting while sequentially gripping the object to be inspected carried in from a carry-in port, and the inspection information obtaining means is a predetermined part of the object to be inspected. The separation / conveyance means makes the detachment position of the inspected object from the rotating star wheel different, makes the conveyance path after detachment different, and determines that the inspected object is non-defective. The automatic inspection device according to claim 4, wherein the automatic inspection device is configured to separate a non-defective product. 8. A front surface portion, a rear surface portion of a body wall of the housing,
The pair of door-shaped members that can be opened and closed in the vertical and horizontal directions are provided on both side surfaces, and one of the door-shaped members located on the front surface is configured as the operation panel. The automatic inspection device according to any one. 9. The automatic inspection apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a power board for supplying power is housed in the housing.