What is a visual positioning machine, and how accurate is it?

What a visual positioning machine does

Wrapping paper around a box only looks right if the box sits in exactly the right place on the sheet: a millimetre off and the print runs crooked along an edge. Positioning by hand relies on the operator lining the shell up with printed marks. A visual positioning machine photographs the glued sheet, works out where the board must go, and has a robot arm put it there. The HF-1050 is a complete positioning line: it feeds the paper, glues it and positions with a Yamaha robot, so it needs no gluing machine in front of it.

How the HF-1050 works, step by step

1. 01

   Feed the paper

   Cover sheets from 100 × 60 mm to 1050 × 750 mm, 100–350 g/m², are fed one at a time from a 280 mm stack.

2. 02

   Glue the paper

   The sheet is coated with glue on the way to the positioning station. The machine has 4 kW of heating for the glue.

3. 03

   Locate by camera

   The vision system finds where the board has to sit on the sheet.

4. 04

   Place by robot

   A Yamaha robot sets the box shell or the case boards down on the glued sheet, to ±0.1 mm.

5. 05

   Pass on

   A servo-driven conveyor carries the positioned work to the next machine: a box forming machine for boxes, a four-side wrapping machine for cases.

How accurate is visual positioning?

HORFON machines with camera positioning, and the accuracy each one holds.

Parameter	HF-1050	HF-550	HF-8020	HF-5040
Positioning accuracy	±0.1 mm	±0.1 mm	±0.1 mm	±0.1 mm
Speed	15–30 sheets/min	20–30 pcs/min	20–30 sheets/min	18–25 pcs/min
Paper weight	100–350 g/m²	80–300 g/m²	100–350 g/m²	80–300 g/m²
Board thickness	1–3 mm	1–4 mm	1–3 mm	1–3 mm

All four camera-positioned machines are rated at ±0.1 mm. To put that figure in context, here is the stated accuracy of other operations on the same box.

HF-1050: one positioning machine, two kinds of line

The HF-1050 positions both rigid box shells and hardcover case boards, so it can be built into different lines. With a corner pasting machine before it and a box forming machine after it, it makes an automatic rigid box line. With a four-side wrapping machine after it, it becomes an automatic case maker. It runs single positioning for boxes up to 450 × 400 × 120 mm, or double positioning for boxes up to 350 × 180 × 70 mm.

HF-1050, HF-5040, HF-550 or HF-8020: which camera machine?

The HF-1050 is the flexible one of the four: it is the only one that handles both boxes and cases. The other three each finish one product in a single machine.

Adding camera positioning to a line you already have

There are two ways in. A Yamaha robot can be added to the servo version of the HF-850A gluing machine, which turns it into an automatic positioning machine. Or the gluing machine and the hand positioning table are replaced by an HF-1050. In both cases the corner pasting machine before it and the forming or wrapping machine after it stay where they are.

What the HF-1050 needs

• Electricity: 380 V at 50 Hz, 7.5 kW machine power and 4 kW heating.
• Compressed air at 0.6 MPa.
• Floor: 7.0 × 3.5 m, 2.0 m high; the machine weighs 2,000 kg.
• Material: greyboard 1–3 mm thick, paper 100–350 g/m².

When camera positioning is worth it

• Printed or foil-stamped paper where the design must sit square on the box.
• Cases with several boards, where every gap has to be the same.
• Long runs, where consistency from the first piece to the last matters more than flexibility.

When hand positioning is still the better choice

• Boxes smaller than 60 × 60 × 15 mm, which is the minimum for the HF-1050. The HF-450 forming machine goes down to 45 × 45 × 15 mm.
• Board thicker than 3 mm: the HF-1050 takes 1–3 mm, while the grooving, corner pasting and forming machines take up to 4 mm.
• Cover paper lighter than 100 g/m²: the HF-850A gluing machine runs paper from 80 g/m².
• Plain paper with no print to register, where a small offset cannot be seen.

Machines in this guide

HF-1050Automatic Visual Positioning Machine for Rigid Box and Hardcover15–30 sheets/min

HF-550Automatic Case Making Machine20–30 pcs/min

HF-8020Automatic Folding Box Side Wing Wrapping Machine20–30 sheets/min

HF-5040Automatic Rigid Box Making Machine18–25 pcs/min