Esempi di
applicazioni
Crest Industries automates quality
data collection using WinWedge (SoftwareWedge for Windows)
Crest industries, Inc., has been in
business since 1991 serving a wide variety of companies in the
consumer electronics industries. They sell and service industrial
automation equipment, both electronic and mechanical aspects. Their
newest area is in the production of custom test equipment for the
machines they service.
Multiple-Sensor Test Machine
Interface
Crest Industries uses the
SoftwareWedge for Windows Pro version (WinWedge Pro) to interface to
a test instrument used to measure the performance of
mechanical-pneumatic devices used on surface mount chip placement
machines. The tester is a stand alone unit which records the various
parameters (such as speed and accuracy) to its own internal memory.
The tester consists of multiple sensors, including displacement,
load and pressure sensors, and it also includes a bar code wand for
reading the bar code on each part as it is being tested. WinWedge is
used as the communication link between the tester and application
programs. It is able to take data readings from all the sensors and
also the bar code scanner.
Before using WinWedge they
experimented with various simple serial communications programs to
receive the data. They also considered using a hardware (keyboard)
wedge but this was too limited or even writing their own custom
software for the host PC.
They decided on WinWedge due to its
versatility and the great savings in time that it would bring. The
typical end-user of their tester would like to keep track of the
machine parameters through time as part of a Statistical Quality
Control program. A spreadsheet or database type approach is an ideal
way for users to track the performance of the machine and to
indicate when maintenance is needed. Catching failures before they
occur on the factory floor saves both time and money.
To use this spreadsheet approach
with their stand alone tester they would have needed to write their
own spreadsheet and communications program for transferring this
information from their tester to the host PC. The Wedge allows them
to communicate with any spreadsheet, database or SPC package. This
is particularly important when the customer already has software in
place. WinWedge makes their tester product much more universal and
attractive.
This is what Travis Perry,
Applications Engineer, had to say about the performance of WinWedge:
"WinWedge performed exactly as the
ad said it would. It is transparent to the user, and yet allows us
to communicate with any Windows program. We are very pleased with
the software and its ease of use."
"We are particularly pleased with
the character translation abilities, both pre-input and pre-transfer,
because it allows us to configure the Wedge to communicate with
various databases without a change in our tester software. We have
saved different config files for the types of software we come in
contact with, so we can immediately adapt our product to the
customer's needs, whatever they may be. The input record structure
was also very helpful in keeping the various data fields and types
in order for transfer to the host program."
"And finally, we would be happy to
recommend WinWedge to anyone with a unique serial communications
problem, or virtually any application using serial transfer into
already existing programs. To sum it up, the best part about the
Wedge was it allowed us to add serial communications to existing
programs which had no such ability."
Benefits
- Simultaneous data collection
from many different instruments
- Cost savings from preventative
maintenance
- Transparent to the end user
- Easy to use
- Adds serial communication to
existing programs with no such ability
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