ipf ensures constant quality assurance in laser welding

Nowadays, consistently high product quality is an important building block for high customer satisfaction. In this context, targeted control procedures can ensure that products are manufactured and delivered in consistently high quality. To meet these requirements, a company specializing in the processing of various metal components using different welding processes would like to monitor a specific welding process in real time. In order to be able to assess the melt during laser welding, the process should therefore be recorded with a camera and the results subsequently analyzed and logged.

Not an easy task, as practice shows: During welding, the light emitted by the plasma can lead to a cross-fade in the camera images. Due to overexposure, a large part of the image information for quality assurance is therefore lost. The desired system had to avoid such problems and be able to capture the fast-moving laser welding process continuously in order to be able to assess the result of the work in detail. The solution also had to be as compact as possible, as only a very small installation space is available for the camera including illumination. These are all requirements and challenges that the OC29 high-speed cameras from ipf electronic can overcome.

With these systems, fast-running industrial processes with very high frame rates (images per second) can be easily recorded, saved and then analyzed. In combination with free software, possible causes of interference or errors and, as a result, potential for process optimization can be identified quickly, economically and easily. In order to avoid the aforementioned glare caused by the light emitted by the plasma during the welding process, a combination of several lens filters was used in this application for the OC299725 monochrome camera, which only allow the light waves required for image recording to pass through. Additional illumination also ensures that sufficient light is still available for usable image recording.

Thanks to the high-speed camera system from ipf electronic, the company can now precisely record and analyze the laser welding process. Possible problems are thus quickly identified, allowing the welding process to be optimized in a targeted manner. In addition, the images can be archived for complete documentation of the welding quality.