Opto switch for detecting translucent polypropylene

Question

I am building a liquid handler (a CNC machine that pipettes small quantities of liquids). The machine switches polypropylene "tips" between pipetting different fluids. Positional accuracy within 0.5mm of the pipette tips is key. However, I have sourced tips from several different manufactures and in each batch there are some tips that are slightly bent/warped. I would like to find the position of the bottom of the pipette tip to calculate any offset into the g-code if the pipette tip is bent. (Note: The diameter of the bottom of the pipette tip is 0.75mm.) These tips are very fragile, so I would prefer not to bump them into mechanical switches. I wanted to use optical switches, but polypropylene has a high transmission of IR wavelengths, and thus do not trigger optical switches.

So my question: is there a way to optically detect polypropylene? Polypropylene has a low transmission at 3250 nm. This is my first post to StackExchange let me know if detail/formatting is lacking. Thank you for your time.

Answer 1

For an industrial application the normal approach would be to submit a sample of your product to an industrial sensor vendor and let them propose a solution. A through-beam slot sensor should be able to give very good resolution. You would program the machine to move the part across the sensor, stop when the beam is broken and then make your move relative to that position.

Figure 1. An opto slot sensor has an infrared LED on one side and photo-transistor on the other.

You might be able to find one with a logic output which would simplify your setup rather than have to amplify the photo-transistor output current.

Figure 2. Using polarized light to detect translucent part. Image by LEDnique.

Another approach would be to use a vision system to report the position. Since your part is translucent you could use polarisation of light to your advantage. Illuminate the part from the rear using an LED backlight covered with a polarizing filter. Add a polarizing filter to the camera and rotate to 90° so that the backlight appears black. Now when a part is positioned in between the filters it will randomize the polarization of the light passing through it and the part will show up as a light image on a dark background.

Answer 2

Droplets of Poly. will diffuse light easily and may be detected dropping past a vertical camera with a diffused back reflector such that the attenuation loss from the reflection coefficient and light spreading is easily detected with 1/60th second captures over a 1cm area or a droplet speed of 60 cm/s. If it is faster, then define it.

It is possible to locate an optical sensor 10mm effective aperture camera array to accept a calibration drop and measure the offset from the optical datum home switch to measure any change from the working position home defined as the xy axis droplet centre position. This can be used to create a new home work position from which a stepper gantry can then locate to the system design accuracy be it full steps of say 0.5mm or 1/16 steps of < 0.05mm accuracy.

The g-codes for doing the correction calibration is easy. The challenge is to choose an optical reflective array sensor like a 9600 dpi laser mouse chip to detect the peak centre of the droplet and convert this into a geometric work 0,0 position which is just near the datum 0,0 optical home positions in a corner or single linear axis. Cleaning the array sensor after calibration might be a manual operation.

Here the SNR of the optical array signals only have to report the error in the geometric xy mean of the optical array. This can confirm as a go-no go or be used in error correction for position error in the servo by some method. TBD

Answer 3

I doubt that you can easily find LEDs/Photodiodes/photo transistors in the 3250nm band, but you should be able to target the much narrower ~1450nm set of bands.

This LED operates at 1450nm with a bandwidth of 90nm. It might have enough sensitivity around that wavelength peak to detect both of the polypropylene absorption peaks in that region.

You can use the same LED as a photodiode, although these are not specified for that purpose, its absorption spectra will be in the same region and should work well for your application. You might probably have to mask them to achieve the mechanical tolerance you require.