Sensor measures plastics parameters quickly & easily

This non-contact sensor system has been designed specifically for use with plastics of all kinds and enables parameters such as thickness to be measured quickly and easily, inline or offline from a single side, thereby cutting down on wastage and rework caused by the production of under or over thick materials and components.

The benefit of the CHRocodile K is that it is able to measure thicknesses between 15µm and 500µm at data rates up to 4KHz meaning that its use is extended from the QA laboratory onto the production line. As an added bonus the optical measuring head is “passive” (ie has no electrical connection and is unpowered) so that the system can be operated in hazardous environments and is immune to RFI from such things as direct drive motors etc.

Integration into production lines has been simplified by the use of USB, RS232, RS422 and multiple analog interfaces for remote triggering and output synchronisation, plus three encoder inputs to allow direct remote control of the CHRocodile K. The optical measuring head and optoelectronic control cabinet are connected with fibre optic cable allowing the two parts of the measuring system to be operated while they are separated by tens of meters and the fibre optic cable is routed through walls into high vacuum and/or heated environments.