Mobile Devices
Consumer Electronics Mobile Devices Dimensions Description
Height Gap Of Inkjet Printers
Height Gap Of Inkjet Printers Consumer Electronics Height Gap Of Inkjet Printers Positioning Description Introduction:  Inkjet printers require a certain distance between the inkjet print head and the paper. If the distance is set incorrectly, the printed images get blurry. Current state of the art printers have the print head nozzles built right into the bottom of the ink reservoir (B) as shown below. When the ink cartridge is installed in the printer, the inkjet nozzles (made out of silicon) essentially become a grounded target through the connections shown at [...]
Electronics Parts Profiling
Electronics Parts Profiling Consumer Electronics Electronics Parts Profiling Thickness Description MTI's 2D laser sensors can be used to scan 3D profiles of items such as printed circuit boards to verify all the parts are installed, making sure parts don’t exceed certain heights or that the part is present. You can even plot or examine the image intensity profile of the 2D sensor which yields a monochromatic image of the target and this can be used with OCR software or barcode software to recognize product codes, check if labels are present or [...]
Glass Thickness
Glass Thickness Consumer Electronics Glass Thickness Thickness Description Did you know that glass thickness can be measured with a capacitance probe? You will need some equipment: Digital Accumeasure D200 ASP-2500-CTA Dielectric probe (The capacitance probe has a sensing area of 11.25 mm) Range extension = 3X, 10Hz filter Introduction:  An industrial glass fabricator needed a way to determine the thickness of glass, before cutting it to shape and coating it. The glass sample was marked with indices to find the measuring points. The sample center point -5- thickness was checked with [...]
Piezo Stage Positioning
Piezo Stage Positioning Consumer Electronics Piezo Stage Positioning Description Positioning stages using piezoelectric stack actuators (PEA) have very high resolution. However, it is difficult to achieve precise dynamic motion tracking using traditional linear controllers such as PID due to the inherent hysteresis nonlinearity of piezoelectric materials and the phase lag associated with such controllers. Capacitance Sensors are ideal for measuring the actual piezo stage position and correcting for the inherent nonlinearity through closed loop feedback. They have the stability, bandwidth and high resolution needed to do the job. Several of MTI’s [...]
Automotive Engine Controller Monitoring
Automotive Engine Controller Monitoring Customer Case The customer is a major electronics manufacturer who wants to find a cost effective replacement to VXI digitizers in testing automotive engine control signals. The requirement is for several ATE stations. Each one will require 4 single-ended channels or 2 "true differential" channels, 4 MHz of input analog bandwidth (mostly single shot) with voltage ranges from 0.05 to 70 volts. The digitizers must have at least 12 bits of vertical resolution, 0.5% accuracy and ½ MegaSample per channel of acquisition memory. The customer would like to operate the station under a controlling LabVIEW [...]
Thread Checking
Automotive Thread Checking Presence/Absence Description Manual thread inspection is slow, not always reliable and tedious for the inspector. Manufacturers have struggled to come up with ways to reliably automate the process at a reasonable cost. Automated systems are available that use “screw sensors” can quickly wear or be cross threaded, requiring operator attention and a tooling change. A worn screw can provide false rejections leading to the unnecessary scrapping of parts. Capacitance solutions are cost effective alternative which are becoming increasingly popular due to their high reliability and fast measurement speed. Special cylindrical “ring [...]
Fiber Optic Automated Measurement System
Fiber Optic Automated Measurement System Customer Case The customer is in the business of developing lasers and LED components for fiber optic data \ telecommunications applications. The requirement is for an automated test system to monitor the pulse characteristics of the laser. The customer will require 3 channels at high vertical resolution due to the fact that some variances in amplitude will be only 1 mV and need to be detected. The goal is to capture 10,000 samples per channel at 50 MegaSamples per second with a 1 KHz to 5 KHz Pulse Repeat Frequency (PRF). The customer would [...]
Spindle Run Out
Spindle Run Out Automotive Spindle Run Out Distance Description Rotating targets frequently have an intermittent, uncertain or nonexistent ground path. This introduces unwanted noise, instability, drift and reduces accuracy of the measurement. MTI Instruments offers a unique "Push-Pull" capacitance measurement system that does not require a grounded target. It utilizes two probes, built into one body, that work together to complete the ground path. One probe pushes current into the brake rotor while the adjacent probe pulls the current out. The result is a "clean", consistent electrical sensing path. As [...]
Grinding Process
Grinding Process Automotive Grinding Process Surface Description A cylindrical grinding process finishes most wheel spindle surfaces. It is essential that this grinding process leave a surface finish that is smooth and free of defects with minimal runout. No grinder produces a perfect surface. Grinder wheel runout, improperly dressed wheels and fixture vibrations can cause chatter on the spindle surface finish. Chatter is a series of microscopic, repetitive imperfections, or waves, in the surface of the material being machined. The required production environment sensor must have small spatial resolution, high frequency [...]