Product category:
Form/co-ordinate, optical and vision instrumentation
News Release from: Ashtead Technology | Subject: I-Speed video camera
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 13 November 2006
High-speed video reveals machine flaws
A high-speed camera hired from Ashtead Technology Rentals has provided a manufacturer of can-making equipment with hitherto unattainable access to machine performance information.
A high-speed camera hired from Ashtead Technology Rentals has provided a manufacturer of can-making equipment with hitherto unattainable access to machine performance information CarnaudMetalbox Engineering manufactures can-making equipment in Yorkshire, Worcester and the USA
The company's equipment is capable of producing cans at enormous speed - some of the machines are able to handle more than 3000 cans per minute.
At such speeds the production process appears as little more than a blur to the human eye.
Consequently, any small imprecision in the machine's operation can be very difficult to detect.
CarnaudMetalbox Engineering's David Smith recently trialled a new die-necking machine at Crown Packaging's beverage can plant in Carlisle.
The die-necker shapes the end of the can before filling and sealing and is capable of running at 3400 cans per minute.
David needed to be able to check and verify the actions of the machine across a variety of run speeds and was advised that a high speed Olympus camera would be suitable.
He contacted Ashtead Technology Rentals and was pleased to be able to hire an i-Speed camera at short notice.
The i-Speed video camera is an all-in-one self contained unit incorporating an Olympus specified CMOS sensor giving the user 800 x 600 resolution at 1000 frame/s (operation at up to 33,000 frame/s is possible).
Connection to the RCP (remote control pad) or Olympus CDU (camera display unit) allows full control of all camera functions and immediate data analysis facilitates decision making on-site.
The system has built-in measurement, storage and editing capability through the CDU with no PC required, although an Ethernet connection is available if PC control is preferred.
Ashtead's Andy Cleaver says: "Visual inspection equipment forms a significant section in the Ashtead rental fleet".
"In addition to high-speed cameras, we offer fibrescopes, flexible videoscopes, lighting sources, pipe and cable trackers, rigid borescopes, video crawler inspection systems and infra-red cameras, all from world-class manufacturers such as Olympus, Sony, MiniCam, iPEK, Pearpoint and Flir Systems".
"Our cameras are hired for use in an enormously wide variety of applications from filming jungle insects for the BBC to inspecting the internal components of motorway bridges".
"We have found that the number of companies preferring to rent than buy has grown very rapidly in recent years".
"This is a result of a number of factors -companies prefer variable costs to fixed and renting provides access to the latest technology and involves no maintenance or storage issues" Commenting on the usefulness of the i-Speed, David Smith says: "My team was amazed at how quick and easy the i-Speed was to set up and run".
"The unit's built-in lighting was perfectly sufficient to record the die-necking machine operating at 1200 cans per minute, but we would probably have had to provide extra lighting if we had needed to run any faster".
"The i-Speed provided us with information on our machine that had previously been unavailable".
"We know how the machine is designed to perform but we can only verify this if we can actually see it in operation - if we had had this technology in the past we could have saved a great deal of money".
"We certainly plan to use an i-Speed again in the future".
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