Identifying Presence and Height of a Bottle Cap

In the beverage filling process, there needs to be a system that can accurately identify missing or incorrect caps.  It is very important to verify the presence of caps because missing or misaligned caps can result in spills, wasted product, or product recalls – costing beverage companies valuable time and money.  This could be done with a manual inspection, but to minimize production downtime and increase throughput an automated cost-effective solution is needed.

The iVu Plus Gen 2 vision system, paired with a Q4X and LEDRB backlight, offer a solution that will provide dependable results.  As the filled bottles pass by the Q4X sensor, it triggers the iVu vision sensor to capture an image and compare with a correct image that was previously stored in the device.  If the image matches, then the cap was installed correctly and the bottle will continue moving along the production line.  However, if the image does not match and the cap is found to be missing or improperly lined up, then a fail output is sent to the line and the bottle is rejected.

The Banner Red LED backlight is used to create a silhouette of the bottle cap.  The lights are built with powerful LEDs, and IP67 and IP69K housing to provide bright and even illumination in a washdown environment.