The problem on the floor
A scratch on a machined face is easy to see when you are looking for it and easy to miss on part four hundred. Light angle matters. A mark that shows under one lamp can vanish under another. Fatigue, a dim lamp or a rushed shift all play a part, and none of them show up in the paperwork.
Customers do not care how it happened. A scratched part that ships becomes a return, a corrective action request, and a question about what else got through. Catching the mark at the bench costs a few minutes. Catching it after the part is at the customer costs much more, and it also costs trust.
What the station does
The operator puts the part in the fixture under an enclosed light box. The camera takes a photo. VZSOR compares it to what your good parts looked like and returns PASS or FAIL in a moment. This all happens at the bench, next to the machine or the packing table, and does not need an engineer to run.
On a FAIL, a heatmap marks the area it did not like. The operator checks that spot with their own eyes, under their own lamp, and decides. Suspect parts go to the HOLD bin. Clean parts go to PASS. The heatmap saves time because the operator does not have to hunt over every face.
Why fixed light matters
Shiny metal throws glare. A glare band on a good part can look like damage to a camera. The station uses an enclosed LED box at one fixed setting, so the light does not change from part to part or shift to shift.
Even so, glare is the main thing we test. A tilted part can still catch light in a way the training photos did not cover. That is one reason a pilot starts with your parts and your fixture. Fixing the part in a fixture and training on parts seated the same way keeps that variation small.
What has been validated
The station was trained and tested on a 2 inch by 2 inch aluminum L-bracket with a mill finish. It targets dents, scratches and nicks on the visible faces. One camera view looks at both inside faces at once. The station looks at that part from one fixed view.
Outside faces, anodized finishes and tool marks are not covered. Deep pockets, curved surfaces and large parts may need different optics. We would rather say so now than find out in your shop. The pilot is where those cases get tested, one at a time, on parts you supply.
How a shop sets it up
- Choose one part number and one view that shows the faces that matter.
- Build a fixture, such as V-blocks, so the part sits the same way each time.
- Use the enclosed light box. Set the dimmer once and leave it.
- Photograph about 60 good parts and run the setup wizard, about 30 minutes.
- Keep a few parts with known defects for the pilot test set.
Limits, stated plainly
- Validated on one part: a 2 inch aluminum L-bracket, mill finish.
- Anodized parts and tool marks are not validated.
- One view sees the faces in frame. Faces out of view are not inspected.
- The field of view is roughly 100 to 120 mm, so large parts do not fit in one shot.
- VZSOR does not measure depth or size. It does not tell you how deep a scratch is.