Lapp India is 100% subsidiary of LAPP Group, the German Cable Manufacturer, founded in 1957. In 1996, Lapp India started its operations by setting up a state-of-the-art manufacturing unit at Jigani, Bengaluru. A second plant was set up at Bhopal in 2012. Each year Lapp manufactures 1,80,000 kms of cables at these facilities.

The Bangalore cable manufacturing unit had both an online and offline insulation thickness measurement systems. The online laser based system, placed next to the extruder provided  real time diameter readings. And for offline measurements they had a Field of View based manufacturing systems and a Profile Projector. However, the existing FOV based systems had a few issues; Firstly it needed a trained operator to run the equipment so that if for some reason the operator was not available, the samples would pile-up. Secondly, there was built-in error in the system so that the samples would always measure a few microns more than their actual value. Thirdly, the system did not have automated concentricity measurement functionality so that the operator had to manually calculate concentricity for each sample. This necessitated a need for a system that did not have these issues.

In 2019, the Lapp Quality Team headed by Mr. Ravi Kumar, came across Sipcon’s Cable Quickie, the one click system for measuring cable insulation and sheath thickness. The team had a demo and liked the accuracy and the measurement speed of the system. Moreover, it did not require any special skills to operate so that anyone in the quality lab with basic computer skills could run it. Also, the eccentricity of the cable cross-section which was a major parameter that the team wanted to know could be calculated instantly.  Sipcon installed an SVI-CQ-48 model at Lapp Bangalore a few days after the demo. Now the team could quickly and easily measure the 70-80 samples in a day and since there are no moving parts in the machine, it is virtually maintenance free.

 

 

Established in 1963, Anchor Electricals Pvt Ltd, started as a family owned business with the manufacturing of Tumbler switches in Mumbai. In 2009, it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Matsushita Electric Works, Japan. Today it manufactures a wide range of electrical products including switchgears, lighting products, water heaters, indoor fans, solar panels, electric cables, home automation etc.  in its nine operating units.

Anchor’s Cable Manufacturing Plant at Bhuj, Gujarat  manufactures cables for household applications. For Cable Insulation Thickness compliance as per IEC60811 and IS10810 standards they previously used a Profile Projector with DRO to measure insulation thickness at six points. The process took an average 15-20 minutes and included marking samples at 60 deg intervals, measuring them and manually writing down reports. Moreover, operator to operator variation in the measured results led them to look for a system that could automatically measure the samples.

In 2012, Anchor procured Sipcon’s Vision Measuring System which could automatically detect the thickness using video edge detection. It eliminated, operator to operator error thus leading to more reliable results.  However, the measurement time was still around 10 minutes which was not a concern back then when only 20-25 samples were to be tested in a day.

With an increase in throughput at its plant, especially the need to ensure that the extrusion process was adding the right thickness onto the copper conductor so that no excess insulation layer was being added led Anchor to look for a solution that could almost instantly measure thickness so that they could take a corrective action in time. With no online measuring systems this offline system had to be reliable enough as well.

In 2019, the Quality Head Mr. Nihar Malik was given a demo of Cable Quickie model SVI-CQ-24  and he instantly realised the usefulness of the product for Anchor.  Additionally, an unexpected benefit came with Cable Quickie’s top light-software module that could measure the thickness of individual color layers in the cross-section. With this knowledge Anchor, could exactly determine and control the thickness of its base color and the thickness of it more expensive top color thereby keeping the overall insulation material costs under control.

Mr. Ram, the operator of Cable Quickie at Anchor is relieved to have a system that could instantly and accurately measure upto 100-150 samples per day, something which was not possible earlier with either Profile Projector or Vision Measuring System.

 

Established in 1974, Electrical Research and Development Association, commonly known as ERDA,  is India’s top most organization for testing, evaluation, certification, consultancy and R&D related to electrical products and systems. With its Head Office in Vadodara, Gujarat, it has more than 300 members and is managed by Managing Committees comprising of elected members from both the government and the industry.

The Cable Testing Labs located in Vadodara and Gurgaon is equipped to perform all types of tests related to Cables including tensile strength, shrinkage, resistance, insulation thickness etc. Clients can book a test online on its website and they have an option to come to the lab to witness the test themselves.

Insulation Thickness measurements were initially done using Verniers and Micrometres and the process was very slow and prone to errors.  Moreover, reports were prepared manually which further could let to errors in reporting. In 2009, ERDA was introduced to a Sipcon’s Vision Measuring System which used video edge detection technology to automatically detect the profile of the cable cross section. It was an accurate system with a 5 micron accuracy, an average measurement time of 10-15 minutes and the Lab used it four years.  However as the number of samples to be measured grew over the years a need for a faster system was felt. Meanwhile Sipcon had launched Cable Quickie, the one click measurement system in 2011. Sipcon introduced Cable Quickie to ERDA in 2013 and the lab in charge at the time, Mr.Nilesh Pandya, instantly liked the new system primarily for its speed and accuracy. Cable Quickie , SVI-CQ-64 could measure a sample in 1-2 seconds and that too with a 5 micron accuracy and 3 micron repeatability. The system significantly improved the lab throughput. Earlier the team could measure a maximum of 20-25 samples in day and the process was tiresome as the users had to visually probe the measurement points, however with Cable Quickie, the team could measure up-to 50 samples in a day, if required, relying on its Field-of-View measurement technology and intelligent algorithms. Moreover other important parameters like ovality, eccentricity, Min and Max Thickness were automatically calculated which was earlier not possible in Vision Measuring Systems. The other major advantage which the ERDA team found very useful was the ability of the system to generate reports in any of the standards being used globally, however they mostly use EN10810 and IEC 60811-1-1 standards.

Over the years as the work-load grew further ERDA procured a second system SVI-CQ- 150 in 2016 and a third system SVI-CQ-64 in 2017 for its cable testing Lab in Vadodara. More recently, a new ERDA lab was opened in Gurgaon near New Delhi and a Cable Quickie model SVI-CQ-64 was procured in May 2020.