Determining component height deviations
AssigneeAsmpt Smt Singapore Pte. Ltd.
InventorsTom Falcon, Simon Stuart Pape
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Heights of components or parts thereof are measured within a printing machine by measuring their relative rather than absolute heights. A virtual surface may be constructed from the measured heights, with a tolerance level employed based on the virtual surface. The invention is particularly suited to measurement of tooling components within a printing machine, such as tooling pins.
Claims10
A printing machine for printing print medium onto a workpiece, comprising a tooling table for receiving a plurality of tooling pins thereon, and
- a component height sensing system,
- the component height sensing system comprising:
- a height sensor operative to measure the relative heights of at least three component locations corresponding to tooling pins relative to the height sensor and output measured relative height information, and
- a control means for receiving the measured relative height information from the height sensor, determining, from the received relative height information, the heights of each of the at least three component locations relative to the others of the at least three component locations and comparing the determined relative height information to a predetermined tolerance level to identify height deviations of any component locations.
A method of determining height deviations of component locations within a printing machine for printing print medium onto a workpiece, said printing machine comprising a tooling table for receiving a plurality of tooling pins thereon, the method comprising the steps of:
- i) using a height sensor to measure the relative heights of at least three component locations corresponding to tooling pins relative to the height sensor,
- ii) determining, from the measured relative heights, the heights of each of the at least three component locations relative to the others of the at least three component locations, and
- iii) identifying height deviations of any component locations by comparing the heights of each of the at least three component locations relative to the others of the at least three component locations determined in step ii)) to a predetermined tolerance level.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.