TECHNICAL FIELD

The present specification discloses technology related to a capacitor charging performance monitoring system for monitoring the charging performance of capacitors in electric circuits mounted on production machines installed in a production line.

BACKGROUND ART

For example, in a component mounter installed in a production line (component mounting line) for manufacturing a component-mounted board, an image recognizing system for using a camera to capture an image of a component held by a suction nozzle or a reference mark of a circuit board onto which the component is to be mounted and recognizing the image is installed, and a lighting device for illuminating an object to be captured (a component or a reference mark) when capturing the image is attached to the camera. Generally, as described in patent literature 1 (JP-A-2006-119350), a lighting device of a camera is provided with a capacitor for causing a large current to flow through light-emitting elements such as LEDs, the capacitor is charged prior to imaging, and discharge from the capacitor is performed when imaging to cause a large current to flow through the light-emitting elements to emit light with high brightness so as to illuminate an imaging target.

CITATION LIST

Patent Literature

Patent literature 1: JP-A-2006-119350

BRIEF SUMMARY

Technical Problem

With the lighting device, when a capacitor deteriorates due to long-term use, the capacitance of the capacitor decreases, and the amount of charge that can be charged in the capacitor decreases, so that the current flowing through the light-emitting element when the capacitor is discharged decreases, and the amount of light emitted from the light-emitting element decreases.

Since a camera with a lighting device mounted on a production machine such as a component mounter is used for image recognition of an imaging target, if the amount of light emitted from a light-emitting device of a lighting device decreases due to deterioration of a capacitor, the amount of illumination light for illuminating the imaging target becomes insufficient, the definition of an image captured by a camera decreases, thereby deteriorating the image recognition accuracy. Such deterioration of the image recognition accuracy also causes deterioration of the quality of a product to be produced, production of defective products due to erroneous recognition, or stoppages in production due to an image processing error or the like.

Solution to Problem

To solve the above problems, disclosed herein is a capacitor charging performance monitoring system of a production machine for monitoring charging performance of a capacitor in an electric circuit installed on a production machine provided in a production line, the system including: a charging voltage detecting section configured to detect a charging voltage of the capacitor; a charging time measuring section configured to measure, as a charging time, a time from starting charging to a time when a specified charging complete determination voltage that can be used to determine when the charging voltage of the capacitor has reached full charge is reached based on the charging voltage of the capacitor detected by the charging voltage detecting section; and a charging performance determining section configured to determine whether the capacitor has deteriorated by determining whether the charging time measured by the charging time measuring section is equal to or less than a specified deterioration threshold value, wherein the charging performance determining section issues a warning upon determining that the capacitor has deteriorated. The warnings may be issues via display or sound using a display device provided on the production machine or a mobile terminal carried by an operator.

There is a relationship such that as the capacitor deteriorates due to long-term use, the capacitance of the capacitor decreases, and the charging time from the start of charging of the capacitor to the completion of charging decreases. Using this relationship, the charging time of the capacitor is measured by the charging time measuring section, and when the measured value becomes equal to or lower than a specified deterioration determination threshold value, it is determined that the capacitor has deteriorated and a warning is issued. Thus, when the capacitor has deteriorated to a specified level, it is possible to warn the operator of the deterioration of the capacitor, and to prompt the operator to take measures such as replacement of the capacitor before a problem due to the deterioration of the capacitor occurs.

