Take a Hard Look
Exhibitors at Labelexpo Americas 2004 had plenty of web inspection equipment on display.
LABELEXPO AMERICAS HAD many exhibitors showing off their web inspection equipment, but does a converter really need to purchase inspection equipment? Some say yes, if they want to keep their waste, cost, and production time under control. Web inspection has come a long way, and packagePRINTING took a look at the different makes and models of web viewing systems that were available at Labelexpo, and spoke with some of the customers that use them.
Smile, you're on camera
There are two major different kinds of web scan equipment—web inspection systems and web viewing systems.
Todd Guzzardo, sales division manager, inspection technologies, for Erhardt + Leimer Inc., explained the differences between the two systems. "Web inspection equipment detects defects, and makes decisions on its own. A press operator would use a web viewing system to look at the printed material and to compare it in real time to a master reference image," he said. The operator would then make the decision if the printed material was passable or not.
Erhardt + Leimer has introduced its new print viewing system, the ELSCAN MICRO. Designed around an industrial PC with a Windows NT operating system and Sony RGB color camera with 640 x 480 pixel resolution, the operational features of the print viewing systems include a motorized, split-screen system for comparison of the stored "golden image," and an automatic scan function.
Although relatively new to the market, the ELSCAN has benefited from the good reputation for craftsmanship and customer support enjoyed by Erhardt + Leimer. David Ellings, vice president and head engineer of R.G. Engineering recently installed an ELSCAN on one of his presses that was built for a lottery ticket printer, for viewing both sides of the web. "We've used other company's web viewing systems in the past, but had support and quality issues. We've used other equipment from Erhardt + Leimer, so we knew we would have a good product with the ELSCAN," said Ellings.
Label Vision Systems showcased a new print quality inspection system at Labelexpo 2004—the LVS® 7000 Print Quality Vision System. According to Tim Lydell, director of sales and marketing, the LVS 7000 is a modular system that does a wide range of print quality inspections on the press or rewinder—all at the speed of the line. "The LVS 7000 was born from the idea to do vision inspection online at press speeds, and inspect all of the labels 100 percent. This saves a tremendous amount of time in secondary operations and it eliminates human inspection of the label, thereby improving quality control," Lydell said.
One customer of LVS, who would like to stay anonymous, said they were looking for a system for a gaming project they were developing. "The system was introduced to the company as a means of validating that the random images and text printed by an inkjet was correct and that the different images were tallied. The system was installed and worked as required," Lydell said.
The Viper, developed by PC Industries, is a high-speed, 100 percent, web defect detection system for online inspection of printing and converting products. Designed to provide maximum flexibility with an easy-to-use operator interface, the Viper can be used to inspect business forms and security cards, pharmaceutical printing, lottery tickets, converting applications, container screen printing, high-speed printing, and label applications.
Doyle Systems exhibited Tectonic International's new product, the "Jaguar" print inspection system. The Jaguar includes many features, but its ability to monitor color online seems to be the one converters are looking for the most.
Also introduced at Labelexpo was the new TG 4000 series web inspection system with a new automatic register system by TruColor Vision Systems. The TG 4000 is a completely automatic web inspection system that has the added benefit of TruRegister as an optional upgrade feature, which is used for the automatic register presetting in CI presses.
"Practically speaking and based on several new installations, the TruRegister feature is providing immediate waste reduction and payback by automatically pre-registering CI printing machines (both geared and gearless) to under 100 microns in less than one minute, saving production time and costly material," said Jim Doerr, president and CEO of TruColor Vision Systems.
Pinhole detection is also an important feature on web inspection equipment. Summit Engineering introduced its new DC-3000 line of inspection equipment, which offers new features such as edge guide tracking and programmable inspection lanes, which automatically move with the product to ensure accurately defined lanes.
The wv_3000 web inspection system, now offered by eltromat electronics is an SIS print inspection module that compares the current image with a reference image, said Johannes Stickling, general sales manager for eltromat. "The reaction time of the system is much shorter than human perception," he said.
More to choose from
Sometimes converters want a system that does it all—detects the quality problem, informs the press operator, and then, points out to the operator where the specific problem lies. Advanced Vision Technology (AVT) presented its latest PrintVision solution—the PrintVision/Helios Color.
The Helios is a 100 percent quality assurance solution that detects both random and process faults, by comparing real-time images with good copy masters, called the closed-loop option. When used on a rewinder, the Helios will stop the rewinder and move the defective label to the operator's location. It will detect registration, color, and faults, and will inspect diecutting and matrix removal. The closed-loop feature can help the press operators verify the correct job, and to quickly get the press into the right settings of register, color, and more, said Gal Shamri, vice president of marketing for AVT.
Stephen J. Riccardi, vice president of technical services for YORK Label, said his company purchased AVT's automatic inspection systems because of the operator-friendly quality assurance that came along with buying the equipment. "It was up and running in one week, and the staff was fully trained. We now produce faster and more efficiently," said Riccardi.
And finally, Labelexpo Americas 2004 proved to be the launching pad for a new partnership between Print Vision Systems Inc. and Nyquist Systems Inc. Out of that partnership has spawned the new Web:Inspector:2, with advanced inspection algorithms, and 100 percent web inspection—meaning, it inspects 100 percent of the web, 100 percent of the time. With the addition of a new technology, Pixelregistration, the 100 percent web inspection rate means that small defects, such as missing decimal points, will be found. In addition, commented Stephen Krebs, founder and president of Nyquist Systems, golden templates can now be generated with a single image, vs. averaging multiple images. All of this adds up to inspecting to tighter tolerances.
The Web:Inspector:2 also includes a feature that logs and saves each and every print defect. This feature can be used by press operators to view all of the defects within a roll, and it will help to determine causes and allow the operators to take remedial actions, and to allow QA control personnel to review and evaluate the print quality of the production.
By Megan Wolf
Assistant Editor
