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The NASCAR (National Sports Car Racing Association) racing team usually wears many wheels. According to Champion Tire and Wheel of Charlotte, NC, a racing team typically has as many as 260 wheels, including NASCAR's 15-inch single brake and dual system. The dynamic version of the steel wheels requires a lot of time and effort to manage the wheels, so these racing teams generally choose to outsource the "wheel service" work to a professional company like Champion. Champion Tire and Wheel will be responsible for tracking the wheels throughout, including the storage and transportation of the wheels, ensuring that the right wheels are used for the respective races.
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“Wheel transport is a major source of wear for the racing teams,†said Todd Carpenter, general manager of the company, who explained that in each race, each racing team needs about 60 wheels per car. “At the same time, if the racing teams carry their own wheels, when they don’t play, they need space to store the wheels, and they also need to deal with tire installation and disassembly. Obviously, the best thing to do is to let others handle these things, So that they can focus on the event."
In addition to transporting the bare wheels to the track, where the tires will be installed by Goodyear, Champion will also ship the installed components back to Charlotte, where they will need to dismantle the old tires and send them Recycle bin. Then, clean the wheels, re-storage, rebuild the index, and re-ship to the next track.
Champion paints each team's ID on its wheels, and the company tracks the wheels in a computer system, and each team can log into the system to see the condition of their wheels and which wheels will be used for which games. About 20,000 wheels are stored in Champion's safety facilities, where temperature control measures are used. The company has a fleet of more than 30 truck semi-trailers, each driving 60,000 miles a year, transporting wheels back and forth between the warehouse and the track.
Image-based automation
Every day, after the game is over, about 1,000 racing wheels are returned to the storage warehouse from the truck trailer through automated facilities. Before arriving at the storage warehouse, each wheel with a bar code identification moves along the conveyor belt through various inspection stations. Champion used a laser scanner to read bar codes, but with this system, an average of 200 wheels per day were removed and manual inspection was required because the system could not read their bar codes. Operators often try to put these rejected wheels back on the conveyor belt to see if the laser scanner can read the bar code on these wheels; when this doesn't work, the operator has to use the scan. Gun, manually read these barcodes. In doing so, it takes an extra 20-30 minutes per day and it is not possible to enter the scanner data directly into the computer system. At the same time, these wheels will also miss the ear hole inspection.
With the old system, after the company disassembled the tires and cleaned the wheels, they placed the laser scanner on the conveyor belt before the wheels reached the ear hole inspection station. The scanner's read rate is about 80%, and the low read rate is largely due to the heat source and duty cycle, which causes the bar code to wear out and becomes more and more difficult to read.
Champion replaces the laser scanner with Cognex's image-based DataMan 302L reader, which handles bar code quality degradation, enabling Champion to achieve 97% read rate compared to its previous laser The scanner is 17% higher. The reader is a fixed device with a high resolution (1280 x 1024) sensor for reading very small code in large fields of view and code on smaller parts.
The system eliminates the need for very time-consuming manual acquisition of bar code information, enabling all wheels to pass through all inspection stations and be tracked by the company's computer system. “The system helps us ensure that every wheel we send to the track provides the performance that every racing team expects,†Carpenter said.
In addition, image-based systems offer maximum depth of field flexibility because they use a liquid lens module that uses two plasma liquids, where the oil is an insulator and the water is an electrical conductor. Due to the different voltages at the liquid-liquid interface, a change in curvature occurs, which in turn changes the focal length of the mounted optical lens. For Champion, this means that even when the distance between the camera and the code is constantly changing - this is because the bar code may be located anywhere in a given vehicle, the code can still remain within the focal length. At the same time, the liquid lens is also very rugged (no moving parts), and compact, it has the advantages of very fast response time, good optical quality and low energy consumption.
What is the end result? Only 30 wheels need to be specially handled every day. When using the laser scanner system, more than 200 wheels are removed every day and manual inspection is required. Only 3% of the barcodes are now unreadable, which is caused by severe damage. “Now, if the DataMan reader can't read the barcode, we will change the label,†Carpenter said. The operator does not have to repeatedly try to move the rejected wheel through the scanner. “Operators no longer need to feel frustrated now,†Carpenter said.
Engineering success
Champion has built its own business based on its full understanding of the needs of the racing team and has used its key personnel in engineering backgrounds to handle the wheels in a proper manner to optimize the performance of the wheels.
“We try to think about what we need to do from the perspective of the fleet manager and ask ourselves if we are them and we want others to carry our wheels and tires,†Carpenter said. “Because we are engineers, we will be ourselves. The method is automated and the main goal is to ensure that vehicle performance is consistent and predictable. Handling does have a significant impact on wheel performance. Therefore, Champion uses a conveyor system to carry the wheels instead of bouncing the wheels, or Stack the wheels because the belt is less likely to cause wheel damage. At the same time, each wheel is marked with a bar code, and each time it enters and exits the storage facility, the system automatically scans each wheel to create a complete shipping history of the wheel. Record. As each wheel returns from the field, it undergoes a thorough inspection process to check the roundness and lateral and radial deviation of the wheel and ear.
This inspection process helps ensure that the company does not return damaged wheels to the storage warehouse. “If there are some conditions that cause the wheels to fail to meet specifications,†Carpenter said, “our bar code system will not allow the wheel to leave our storage facility and return to any venue.â€
About the Author
John Lewis, market development manager for Cognex, located in Natick County, Massachusetts.
Figure 1: The bar code or label position on any two wheels is not exactly the same.
Figure 2: In the storage facility at Champion Tire and Wheel, North Carolina, the wheels move along the conveyor belt for inspection. At the same time, moving the wheel on the conveyor system also reduces the risk of damage.
Figure 3: The wheels move along the conveyor belt for inspection.
Figure 4: Each wheel handled by Champion is marked with a bar code that automatically scans each wheel as it enters and exits the storage facility, creating a complete history of the wheel.
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