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56 Wire & Cable ASIA – July/August 2016
Reduced defects: The system can provide the operator
with a view of current surface images as well as both
the most recent defects with defect dimensions and the
current cable diameter.
This continuous stream of real-time information –
especially failure data – allows the operator to isolate the
causes of wrap imperfections. Identifying when and how
a defect occurs will allow the technical staff to learn the
root cause of defects and reduce their occurrence.
Quality assurance: The system will continuously monitor
the wrapping of the cable for both overlap distance and
wrapping angle, and the measurements can be recorded
for later analysis. Images of wrapping and surface defects
are captured and saved to a hard disk for use in quality
reports.
The wrap inspector system’s display makes it easy for
engineering and production supervisors to examine
potential defects without having to see the defect on the
actual cable itself.
Defect images are saved together with location information
allowing operators to quickly find and eliminate defects
before they reach customers or fail in the field.
3.3 Limitations
There are a few limitations to the wrap defect inspection
system:
• Sometimes significantly different wrapping types will
require adjustment to the optical setup or software
changes
• Since the camera is looking at the surface, water
droplets/grease/dust particles will be detected as
defects by the system. Generally, this can be fixed
with a well-placed air wipe. Alternatively, the system
sensitivity can be decreased, which may result in some
of the smaller defects passing through the filter
3.4 Test Results
The wrap defect inspection system is a modified
version of the surface inspection system that is used in
numerous production lines around the world to detect
surface defects on wire and cable. Some sample images
of defects and wrap measurements can be seen in Figures
1 to 6.
4 Conclusions
With a wrap defect inspection system, imperfections in
the wrapped cable surface will be detected and the cable
will be wrapped correctly to show overlap distance and
angle.
The system provides several benefits:
• Suitable for any type of wrapped wire/cable and
convoluted armouring
• Ensure the customer will not get defective products,
improving customer relationship and confidence
• Reduce rework and eliminate cable waste resulting in
material cost and labour cost
• Assist in internal improvement to production process to
reduce defects
• Ensure cable overlap
Paper courtesy of the 64th IWCS Technical Symposium,
Atlanta, Georgia, USA, November 2015.
Craig Girdwood and
Andrew McCloskey,
Taymer International Inc
Markham, Ontario
Canada
Tel: +1 905 479 2614
Email:
Website: