2 March 2007 -- Bestech Australia is offering a system for measuring sprayed skin thickness, which consists of an eddy current sensor and a laser displacement sensor ILD1700.
Sprayed skins for vehicle instruments and controls and for airbag cladding are sprayed in a heated mold using a robot-guided nozzle. As airbag is a safety-critical part, tight tolerances are required. Therefore, the thickness of the sprayed skin is inspected during the spraying process by attaching the combination of eddy current sensor and optoNCDT laser based triangulation sensor directly to the robot arm.
The eddy current sensor measures the distance by going through the sprayed skin to the nickel-coated spray mould. The eddy current sensor has an opening in the centre through which the laser sensor measures the distance to the top of the sprayed part. The processed signals are subtracted from each other to determine the exact thickness signal.
The advantages of using this system are:
Non-contact measurement
High precision against shiny black PU surface
Easy, precise sensor mounting
No axis displacement, as the laser triangulation sensor measures through the eddy current sensor.
