Oil Cap Assembly

Vision sensors control part orientation

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Automated assembly tasks, such as installing o-ring seals into oil caps, generally employ vibratory bowl feeders to supply o-rings and caps to a rotary dial station. If the oil cap o-rings have a sealing bead on one side, then tight control of o-ring and cap orientation is required in order for the finished oil cap to function as intended. Typical feeder bowls used in oil-cap assembly systems rely on mechanical tooling to control part orientation, but pliable parts such o-rings can be a challenge. Very slightly warped o-rings that are not perfectly flat may make it past the tooling, be loaded upside down and cause the oil-cap assembly machine to shut down. Having operators flip improperly loaded o-rings and re-start the machine can significantly reduce oil-cap assembly cell efficiency and throughput.

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Vision sensors eliminate downtime

To detect inverted o-rings a Cognex^® vision sensor may be used to view singulated o-rings as they exit the feeder bowl. In this application, when the vision sensor detects an o-ring in the image, it would position a pattern sensor in the correct location to verify the presence or absence of the sealing bead. If the sealing bead were missing, the vision sensor would send an output to trigger a mechanism to send the inverted o-ring back into the feeder bowl to be recirculated.

Ensuring proper o-ring orientation with Cognex vision sensors error-proofs the oil cap assembly process to reduce waste, eliminate unnecessary downtime and increase throughput.