Process Camera for Glue Dot Quality at Deline Box

The installation

The photographs below are from the completed job. They show the camera positions and how each housing sits against the surface it was mounted to.

A check that depended on spot checks

Deline Box Company builds packaging that depends on precise glue placement. Too much, too little or a dot in the wrong place weakens the finished box, and the fault is usually found later in the process, when the material has already been used.

Spot checks catch some of that. They do not catch the run that starts badly and continues until someone happens to look, which is the waste the camera was brought in to reduce.

The difference the camera makes is that the check no longer depends on someone being at that station at the right moment.

Why this called for a fixed network camera

A standard security camera was the wrong tool. The requirement was a fixed position, a long focal length and control over focus, in a housing that would survive heat, dust and the vibration of the machinery beside it.

The VIVOTEK IP9191-HT-v2 fixed network camera met that brief. It was chosen for image detail at close range and for a housing built for an industrial floor rather than an office ceiling.

A bracket bolted to the machine frame

Mounting was the hard part. A small feature, a shallow depth of field and a fast conveyor leave no room for movement, and the bracket that ships with a camera is not rigid enough for a production line.

We designed a heavy-duty L-bracket and bolted it to the most stable point on the machine frame. From there we set the lens aperture and focus by hand, and used the camera image controls to freeze the motion of the box as it passes.

A dedicated drop for one video stream

The camera runs on its own network drop rather than sharing a busy office connection. A continuous high-resolution stream needs a predictable path, and a dedicated run is the simplest way to guarantee one.

The feed lands on a monitor on the production floor, where the QC team can watch glue application as it happens and stop a bad run early.

A live view for the QC team

The camera gives the team a continuous, objective view of the glue application. A deviation shows on the monitor while the line is running, not in a scrap report at the end of the shift.

The video also documents the process, which matters when a fault has to be traced to the machine, the material or the setup. It is a process tool that happens to look like a camera.