Improving Detection of Surface Imperfections with Green LED Lighting

Application: Enhance visibility of surface imperfections on manufacturing materials

Challenges: Ambient and white light provide insufficient contrast for defect detection

Solution: Green industrial LED task lighting

Benefits: Improved contrast and long-lasting, affordable illumination

To help prevent poor quality products from being distributed to customers, it is important for companies to inspect products before they leave the manufacturing plant. Ambient and overhead white light does not provide sufficient contrast for surface inspections of objects. When inspecting metal or plastic surfaces in these conditions, imperfections such as fingerprints, dirt, or damaged areas can easily be overlooked. Materials that are shipped with these flaws may require additional repair or recall, which would then drive up unwanted expenses.

Description

Green wavelengths are easiest for the human eye to see and adding green lights into the inspection area helps maximize the effectiveness of metal, glass, and plastic inspections. Adding green lighting into this type of work area yields higher contrast compared to white or ambient light. This higher contrast makes the defects more visible to the human eye.

Even some oils react more to bright green lights, making the flawed oil spots more visible. This is especially important in the automotive industry where oil residue on metalized paint can make fisheye imperfections, which are small circular spots that appear on contaminated surfaces.

Green task lighting can be difficult to find. Fortunately, Banner Engineering offers an assortment of LED products available in green, such as the WLB92, WLS28-2, WLS27, and WLA task lights. Using LED lighting on factory floors offers many advantages. The various rugged light fixtures offer high quality and low power illumination with the capability to be installed and rotated at different angles to better accommodate the needs of the operator. They have an estimated lifespan of over 50,000 hours and will never require replacement bulbs or ballasts, providing years of maintenance-free illumination.