Passive electronic components now make up 50 to 90% of all components on circuit boards and represent more than one-fij2h of the board cost. Many of these passive components have been 100% inspected by the manufacturers for electrical properties, but not for mechanical properties. Most manufacturers still measure small samples with micrometers and calipers to veri& overall dimensions, although machine vision is beginning to be used for mechanical inspection. In this paper, we 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 bo& 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 bulkfeeding of such components, a subject of current research.
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