Switched off for Whistle blowing

I've spent the last couple of days on-site re-commissioning two vision systems that had been dormant for 18 months.

Dormant, in that they'd been switched off.

In the client's view, they'd been switched off because "they don't work — when they're switched into the process, everything gets rejected."

Cameras and optics very rarely fail, so long as they're kept clean and mechanically protected. LED lights last for years too — five-plus is normal, ten depending on the application.

The vision systems weren't the problem. The product was. Direct part marks being made in different places. A sensor replaced but not put back accurately. Equipment not kept clean. The system evaluated what it was given and correctly rejected it — the product wasn't in spec.

Its reward for this whistleblowing was to be switched off.

We got both systems back online by mechanically realigning the stations, cleaning the optics, and tweaking a few regions to meet the new "specification." Otherwise, like new.

A vision system rejecting everything isn't usually the fault worth chasing but the symptom pointing at one.