Consumables

Xcam Box Monitoring from Baumer hhs guarantees perfect corrugated boxes in inliner production

Friday 20. December 2013 - With its Xcam Box Monitoring, Baumer hhs offers every possibility for automated quality assurance in the production of corrugated boxes with inliners (Flexo-Folder-Gluer/FFG).

Xcam Box Monitoring reliably detects register inaccuracies of the individual inks in the printed image, wrongly cut or missing slots, skew sheets, faulty flap gluing or gaps deviating from the reference sizes. The individual modules of the system cause automatic marking of all imperfect corrugated boxes, so that they can be ejected from the production workflow, and log all measuring results. The data can be retrieved from the Statistics module for analysis, making it possible to adapt the production process if necessary. In addition, the measuring results can be sent to the customer’s process data acquisition system in the form of PDF or XML files. In this way, Xcam Box Monitoring can be seamlessly integrated in the process chains of the buyers of corrugated boxes.
“In inline corrugated board processing, our Xcam Box Monitoring systems can be combined with our non-contact flap gluing, including integrated quality control, to create an end-to-end basis for zero-defect production. At the same time, automated quality assurance significantly reduces cleaning and set-up times, as well as waste,” says Thomas Fischer-Moore, Corrugated Board Manager at Baumer hhs, summing up the benefits of his company’s innovative quality assurance systems.
Control of the register accuracy of the printed images is handled by the Register Control module of the Xcam Box Monitoring system. It performs an inline check of the correct position of up to six different inks in the printed image relative to each other. The module detects all deviations and has a very high measuring and repeat accuracy of ± 0.05 mm. Even difficult, particularly wavy or rough surfaces are no problem for the Register Control module. The statistical values measured reveal any trends, enabling the machine operators to intervene in the process before the register of the printed imaged exceeds the preset tolerances.
Faulty slots are another possible source of defects in corrugated box production. Baumer hhs developed the Xcam Box Monitoring System Slot Depth Measurement function for reliable, automatic control of their position and form. A high-resolution camera measures the depth of a front and rear slot on each blank – specifically the distance between the flap edges and the creases. The system detects not only every deviation from the reference values stored in the controller, but also any incorrect positioning. The same applies to missing cut-outs. In addition, the camera detects any cardboard fragments left in the slots.
Skew sheets are likewise detected by the Skew system checking the position of every single blank by means of two light barriers. If skew sheets exceed preselected tolerances, these boxes are likewise marked and can later be rejected.
Defects can also not be entirely ruled out in glue application – although the sophisticated technology of the innovative Baumer hhs gluing systems already minimises the possible sources of defects in itself. For instance, the robust, quick-acting, electric cold-glue application heads of the Baumer hhs system for non-contact flap gluing of corrugated board fundamentally guarantee maximum production reliability. Thanks to the piston pumps with pressure regulation, the glue pressure can be adapted to the speed of the machine – meaning that so can the quantities of adhesive applied to the blanks. The system parks the heads in an integrated water bath when they are not in use, thus protecting them from drying-out, gumming-up and contamination. Consequently, defined adhesive application is guaranteed immediately when the inliners re-start. But, despite this sophisticated technology, adhesive application should be consistently checked. To this end, the gluing system from Baumer hhs can be equipped with optical monitoring based on either sensors or Xcam camera modules.
The Xcam GAP system, in turn, reliably measures and checks all gaps that are created in corrugated boxes between the base and lid flaps at the end of the gluing area when the four panels are folded. The gap widths must have certain values so that the corrugated boxes can subsequently be processed without problems in the packing systems. Inline gap measurement ensures that only corrugated boxes with perfect gaps proceed through the packaging process. The module is based on a patented method and combines a high-resolution camera with a laser beam, making it capable of excluding possible defects that a camera-only system might not detect when measuring the gaps. Regardless of whether the box is printed or not, both the front and the rear gap are measured with millimetre precision at the end of the folding arm.
All modules of the Baumer hhs systems are easy to operate via the intuitive Xtend² interface, which is common to all systems. For the machine operators, this means maximum convenience throughout quality assurance. The Xtend² touch screen monitors of the individual systems each display the measuring results and a corresponding graph. The live images recorded by the Xcam camera systems are likewise transmitted to the monitors. In other words: quality control is comprehensively visualised. Production orders can be saved in all systems, meaning that jobs can be retrieved at the tap of a finger for repeat orders.
So, zero-defect production of corrugated boxes is not witchcraft. Rather, thanks to innovative technologies, the process can today be reliably programmed to completely rule out defects.