A drilling setup that drills clean, burr-free holes of 0.3 or 0.5 mm in filter heads
How do you drill a through-hole with a diameter of 0.3 mm in hard plastic? And how do you verify that it was done correctly?
Those were our customer’s main challenges. A hole of Ø0.3 mm ±0.03 mm is difficult to drill and difficult to measure. Drilling was done manually, and inspection was performed using an endoscope camera. Despite all precautions, it regularly turned out later in the process that the drilling had not gone well after all.
Process
Smart Automation developed a design for a small, semi-automatic setup and obtained the following concept:
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- Drilling of filter heads
- Drill bit inspection
- Cleaning of the filter head, for a chip-free end result
- On the screen, the operator can select the product variant with a 0.3 mm or 0.5 mm hole.
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The machine
The setup is equipped with an HMI developed by Smart Automation on the Beckhoff control platform. This provides the operator with a clear interface and gives the technical department all the data they could need.
A Bronkhorst FlexiFlow flow controller is used to monitor the hole diameter. The suitability of this measurement method is verified beforehand. The accuracy proved to be excellent, ensuring that no defective products pass the drilling setup.
The result
The drilling process has now become a controlled process; quality is no longer dependent on the operator. The setup provides the customer with better quality, time savings, and more process data.
Techniques used: machining, measurement technology, process control, Bronkhorst FlexiFlow, MES-integration
