Passive component inspection using machine vision

Passive electronic components now make up 50 to 90% of all components on circuit boards and represent more than one-fifth of the board cost, Many of these passive components have been 100% inspected by the manufacturers for electrical properties, but not fop mechanical properties. Most manufacturers still measure small samples with micrometers and calipers to verify overall dimensions, although machine vision is beginning to be used for mechanical inspection. In this paper, toe investigate machine vision as a technique to enable inspection of 100% such components including properties of size, edge straightness and smoothness, and surface defects for both the body of the part and the terminations. In addition, machine vision is used to derive the orientation and location of the parts. This may have application to bulk feeding of such components, a subject of current research.