Porcelain Glazing Perfected Using Optical Technology

Arabia, a Scandinavian porcelain company, has won several awards for its design and manufacture of artistic and functional ceramic pieces. The company demands that only the highest quality products reach its customers, so any piece that varies even slightly from the company's standards gets scrapped.

A major cause of rejects at Arabia is an inconsistency in the thickness of glaze. If it's applied either too thinly or too thickly, the piece has to be thrown out. To reduce scrap, the company now uses a Dynascope Kestrel from Vision Engineering Inc.

"We were previously using pocket measuring devices," notes Jari Laitinen, product engineer at Arabia. "But these were difficult to use and didn't provide the required accuracy."

The Dynascope Kestrel is an inspection and measurement system offering high-resolution images without eyepieces. The device comes with magnification choices of 10X, 20X and 50X, and two measuring stages are available: 50 x 50 mm and 150 x 150 mm. Data processing is available through a two-axis readout, multifunction microprocessor or PC-based metrology software.

Arabia's operators use the Dynascope to inspect ceramic plates, bowls and cups that have been cut in half prior to kiln firing. The instrument's six-point shadow-free ring illuminator, which allows long working distances, provides bright illumination of the object, allowing the operator to look down onto the straight edge of the object and measure the depth of the glaze using the reference reticles that are superimposed on the optical image. The depth of the glaze sprayed onto the ceramic object can be measured to an accuracy of 0.02 mm, resulting in more consistent end-product quality at Arabia.

Vision Engineering's patented ergonomic optical technology uses a rotating optical disc containing in excess of 1 million precision convex mirrors with a diameter of only a few microns each. This expands the exit pupil from the 3 mm range obtained using traditional microscopes to 100 mm and has the advantage of freedom of head and body movement for the operator.

Arabia has reduced its reject rates significantly since it started using the Dynascope. "It emerged unanimously by far as the best option during extensive production trials," says Laitinen. "It meets all of our requirements at a price that was appropriate when compared to similar kinds of measuring devices. It's also extremely robust and functional in the dusty factory environment."

 
Vision Engineering's Dynascope Kestrel

Benefits

• High resolution without eyepieces
• Data processing through two-axis readout, microprocessor or PC
• Allows long working distances

www.visioneng.com