Vince Harlan asked:

>     I am looking for inspection equipment that can visually inspect a
>     circuit card assembly for defects.  Major defects that I'm
>     concerned with are:  Wrong part numbers, wrong polarity, and
>     missing components.
>
>     I know there are many systems available but I am looking for a
>     system that someone may have experience with that will do the
>     job.

I know that OMRON (Japanese OEM) makes one. We had one of these machines at
Fujitsu imported for our use about 5 years ago. It was very impressive, and
had advanced vison recognition to pick out missing, wrong and reversed,
theoretically even solder shorts. Cost mid 6 figure range. Learned from a
golden board. It was magazine load/unload conveyorized and we tried to use
it in-line after reflow.

Used to tell people it was like having a Learjet in your driveway.
Impresses the hell out of the neighbors, but not very practical to get back
and forth to work.

It will also reject boards when it sees the ink on the parts change color,
an IC changes its mold slightly, or for so many other things that change in
slight ways that it became impractical to use. Too many false rejects was
the main issue with it. I know that there is at least 1 US company (sorry I
can't remember the name) selling such systems. Not sure whether OMRON is
selling their machine in the US yet or not.

It is a good technology, but like some advanced applications, borderline
practical, IMO. You can pay two  ro three full time human operators for 5
years for what that machine cost, plus it would require 50% effort from a
tech to keep it going and additional programming effort. Maybe it has
improved enough to be workable now, but I can't imagine a way around the
problems we were having in 1991-2...



good luck,

Jerry Cupples
Interphase Corporation
Dallas, TX USA
http://www.iphase.com