Highlights

The new Checker 200 inspection sensors from Cognex offer built-in lighting, a variable working distance, and inspection rates faster than 6000 ppm. The sensors can find codes printed on a label, can inspect multiple features simultaneously, and can accommodate varying part positions on a line.

All Checker 200 sensors feature an IP67 housing, quick disconnect cables, and USB connectivity. The Checker 201 handles part finding and inspection, while the Checker 202 adds ladder-logic capability to support custom configurations.

Cognex positions the Checker line within the “inspection sensors” category, which an end user can deploy to solve detection and checking problems (but not gauging). Inspection sensors typically feature simple optical and lighting configurations and generate pass/fail signals. They can replace limit switches as well as photoelectric, inductive, and other sensors.

In contrast, products in the “machine vision” category typically offer a range of optics and lighting options and generally require a systems integrator to deploy. Machine-vision systems typically generate data that must be post-processed; they solve GIGI (guidance, inspection, gauging, identification) problems. Base price: $1495. www.cognex.com.

Imperx has announced that its Lynx family of Gigabit Ethernet cameras is now fully compliant with the GenICam and GigE Vision standards. “Achieving this compliance for our cameras will greatly simplify our customer’s development efforts,” said Imperx president Petko Dinev.

The cameras are available in monochrome or color configurations, offering 8-, 10-, or 12-bits-per-pixel data under software-configuration control. The electronic shutter control offers pre-exposure and double exposure, and the shutters can be triggered through software or external signals.

Software support includes Windows and Linux drivers, development kits for C++ and Visual Basic, and support for a variety of instrument-control packages. Software tools for data acquisition and display, camera configuration, and triggering waveform generation are built in. www.imperx.com.

The physical characteristics of lead-free solder impose new defect types that test and inspection techniques must address. For example, lead-free solder’s higher melting point and reduced wetting, compared with leaded solder, encourages voids in the solder balls in lead-free ball-grid arrays. But at what point do voids move from an acceptable variation to represent a quality problem?

The IPC has produced a number of specifications that directly address this issue. An Agilent Technologies white paper provides a concise, readable description of one of these standards: IPC-7095A, which establishes limits on a void’s percentage of ball volume and ball diameter as well as other criteria that flag situations requiring some kind of corrective action.

The standard advocates transmission or 3-D x-ray inspection as the best way to identify BGA voids both at incoming inspection and after device attachment to a PCB. Although the white paper emphasizes Agilent’s x-ray inspection system, it presents general principles that do not depend on a single platform. cp.literature.agilent.com/litweb/pdf/5989-5663EN.pdf.