Printed Circuit Board Connector Inspection
Confirm correct placement of contacts and cable connections on PCBs
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Flex cables carry signals and power between boards and other components in cellular phones and other small electronic devices. To work at maximum efficiency, the connectors on these cables must fit precisely on the contacts on the appropriate boards during assembly.
Bent contacts and poorly seated connectors will lead to a decreased, intermittent, or even nonfunctioning connection, and thus loss of signal or power. The undamaged condition of contacts and the proper placement of connectors must be verified before the board moves on to the next assembly step.
Contacts and their points can be bent, incomplete, or damaged in a variety of ways, and connectors can be misaligned or incorrectly seated on their contacts. The wide range of possible bent contacts and connector misplacements makes PCB inspection challenging for conventional machine vision, particularly given the other complex and reflective components in the field of view.
Cognex Deep Learning quickly and easily solves connector seating inspections. The assembly verification tool trains on a set of images of functional connections and contacts and learns the full variation of correct installations, even with reflections and against complex backgrounds. Once trained, the assembly verification tool will accept the full range of acceptable assemblies while rejecting those that are outside of the parameters.
When the PCB design changes, Cognex Deep Learning can be retrained on a set of images of the new design, and is quickly back on-line, without the need for programming.
