Assembly factor analysis of optitap fiber connector

The final stage of optitap fiber connector production is the assembly of the finished product. There are two ways to connect the plated pins with the injection box base: independent plug-in or combined plug-in. Single pairing means that one pin is inserted at a time; combined pairing means that multiple pins are connected to the box seat together at one time. No matter which connection method is adopted, optitap fiber connector manufacturers are required to detect whether all pins are missing and correctly positioned during the assembly stage; another type of routine inspection task is related to the measurement of the distance between the joint surfaces of the connector.

Like the stamping stage, the assembly of the optitap fiber connector also poses a challenge to the automatic inspection system in terms of inspection speed. Although most assembly lines have a cycle rate of one to two pieces per second, the vision system often needs to perform several different inspections for each connector that passes through the camera. Therefore, the detection speed has once again become an important system performance indicator.

After the assembly is completed, the dimensions of the optitap fiber connector are much larger than the size allowed by a single pin. This also brings another problem to the visual inspection system. For example, some connector housings are more than a foot in size and have hundreds of pins, and the detection accuracy of each pin orientation must be within a few thousandths of an inch. Obviously, the inspection of a one-foot-long connector cannot be completed on one image, and the visual inspection system can only inspect a limited number of pin qualities in a small field of view at a time. There are two ways to complete the inspection of the entire connector: using multiple cameras; or when the optitap fiber connector passes in front of a lens and triggers the cameras in succession, the vision system "stitches" the single-frame images taken in succession to identify the entire connection. Whether the quality of the device is qualified. The latter method is the inspection method usually selected by the PPT visual inspection system after the connector is assembled.

The detection of "practical position" is another requirement for the detection system of optitap fiber connector assembly. This "practical position" refers to the distance from the top of each pin to a specified planning reference line. The visual inspection system must make this imaginary reference line on the inspection image to measure the "practical position" of each pin vertex and determine whether it meets the quality standard. However, the reference points used to delineate this reference line are often invisible on practical connectors, or sometimes appear on another plane and cannot be seen at the same time on the same lens. In some cases even the plastic on the optitap fiber connector box had to be ground away to confirm the orientation of this reference line.