Project background

After the factory introduced 12 sets of visual inspection stations and connected them to the MES system, the original electrical port network card frequently dropped offline when the welding machine was started. The frame loss in a single shift resulted in hundreds of missed inspections.

Needs and Challenges

• Welding machines and frequency conversion cabinets are exposed to strong electromagnetic interference;
• The vision camera is 10 Gigabit concurrent and requires low jitter transmission;
• There are only 1–2 PCI-E slots left for industrial computers.

Implementation points

The vision workstation was upgraded to a PCI-EX8 Gigabit dual optical port network card (Intel 82599), and ordinary industrial computers were replaced with I350 Gigabit optical port network cards; the sensor concentration area was connected with a single Gigabit eight electrical port network card; the 485 bus of the welding robot was changed to a 2-way bidirectional 485 optical transceiver, and the workshop level was gathered with an 8-port 485 hub.

Deliverables

• Network card disconnection and frame loss failures dropped from an average of more than 40 per month to zero;
• The missed inspection rate dropped by 98%, and the annual quality inspection loss recovered was significant;
• Slot occupancy is reduced, and capacity expansion is completed without adding new industrial computers;
• The production line transformation was completed during the holidays and did not affect delivery.