Reliance Electric Develops and Sells a New Surface Defect Detecting System 'MSC9000' for Coil Centers and the Converting Industry

Background

Coil centers, which are large-scale distribution processors that process coils (steel strips) manufactured by steel manufacturers, are comprised of facilities for various processes, including leveler, slitter, shear, and blanking lines. In addition, coil centers provide a quality control function in order to eliminate defects such as unevenness, scratches, and rust on the surfaces of the coils. Previously, in conventional coil centers, however, such surface defects (unevenness, scratches, and rust) were checked either visually or with equipment developed by the coil center itself, or even general-purpose equipment not designed for use in coil centers. For this reason, surface defect inspection has been, in terms not only of quality control but also of high-speed line operation, a bottleneck in coil centers.



Overview

The MSC9000, a surface defect detecting system soon available on the market, is a system developed by Reliance Electric, a company with over 30 years of experience in the motor driving mechanism business, that has been developed in order to address the technical requirements of the steel plate industry related to coil center lines, including slitter and shear lines. As mentioned above, this surface defect detecting system significantly improves line operation speed by allowing visual inspections to be omitted and facilitates backside inspection, which cannot be checked visually.



The most distinctive feature in the development of the surface defect detecting system MSC9000 is that complex configuration settings specific to surface inspection systems have remarkably been eliminated. This new concept means the MSC9000 is specialized in detecting defects rather than merely checking the surface, rendering its design closer to that of an intermediary system between surface inspection systems and sensors. Further, various functions for reducing operational burdens will be available when the MSC9000 is incorporated in lines which are currently in operation. The MSC9000 is a user-friendly system for line operators.



The surface defect detecting system MSC9000 uses line sensor cameras instead of the area sensor cameras generally used for defect inspections. Since line sensor cameras capture images one row at a time, the line sensor cameras of the MSC9000 repeatedly shoot different rows in accordance with the movement of the line using PLG (pulse generator) signals to create images. This allows users to conduct more precise defect inspections.



Moreover, the surface defect detecting system MSC9000 can be used in converting lines for films, for example.



Features

The main features of the surface defect detecting system MSC9000 are as follows:



(1) Automatic start function

This function determines, in accordance with the movement of the objects for inspection, when to start and stop inspections automatically.



(2) Automatic mask setting function (patent pending)

This function determines the area to be targeted for inspection automatically based on the processed images of the inspection objects, setting the mask area automatically.



(3) Illuminance automatic tuning function

This function automatically sets the illuminance of the lighting equipment according to the surface treatment of the material to be inspected.



(4) Maintenance monitor function (patent pending)

This monitor function is used to promptly conduct maintenance of the cameras and lighting equipment.



Example applications

The main features of the surface defect detecting system MSC9000 are suitable for the following applications:

- Leveler lines

- Slitter lines

- Blanking lines

- Metal processing lines

- Winding lines



Models and pricing

The basic models for sale include the following four types:

- Models with 2 cameras on one side only: Starting at 8 million yen

- Models with 3 cameras on one side only: Starting at 11 million yen

- Models with 4 cameras on both sides (2 cameras on one side x 2 sets): Starting at 15 million yen

- Models with 6 cameras on both sides (3 cameras on one side x 2 sets): Starting at 19 million yen



Sales plan

Reliance Electric expects to sell 20 units (for a total of 300 million yen) per year of its surface defect detecting system MSC9000.