Using Eagle X-Ray's HMI

Overview

The HMI allows users to select the product to be monitored, calibrate and adjust the machine, analyze X-ray images, and monitor operational status.

The main screen has a place for the x-ray image in the middle, image controls on the left, operational indicators on the bottom, and statistics on the right.

Let’s pass an object through the x-ray

The object appears in greyscale on our screen. Darker areas of the image are caused by less x-ray reaching the detector and represent areas of greater mass or density. This is the basic principle we use to detect foreign material—we test for foreign materials that are different density than the product.

Image Controls

At the upper-left corner of the screen--The dark and light sun icon is Auto-contrast. It will make the x-ray image easier to see for visual inspection. It does not affect the machine’s automatic inspection.

Next is the manual contrast icon. It looks like a painter’s palette. It gives us several alternative views for the image as well as manual contrast and brightness sliders. The sliders can be moved by dragging or using the arrows that appear on the screen after touching the slider.

The box with a letter icon cycles through x-ray image filters. Auto-contrast works with most of these filters, but the easiest to see is ‘I,’ the raw image.

The barred window icon toggles the product name at the top of the screen. That’s it’s whole purpose.

The red R toggles reject-only display mode. The last 10 rejects will be viewable together if you press the red R. The machine will continue to inspect in this mode, but you will not see images of accepted product. Press again to return to the live view of all products.

Let’s pass a sample through the x-ray with a foreign material test card.

The frame around the entire image is now red instead of blue. A colored box will appear around a contaminant that has been detected. We call these ‘tags.’ The icon with overlapping boxes turns the tags on and off. The machine will continue to inspect and reject images regardless of the tags being shown.

The floppy disc icon saves the shown image to the repository, that it may be retrieved later or opened using the ‘Open’ folder button.

The arrow buttons cycle through the images. The image queue can contain 10 images—either the 10 most recent scans, or the 10 last rejects if rejects only is toggled on.

The silhouette icon is for the User Access Level. The two-letter code on the silhouette shows the current level. Pressing the icon allows you to switch user level by using the appropriate passwords.

The question mark icon is for Menu Help. It toggles labels for the current display.

Status Indicators

Now across the bottom of the screen we have several indicators. First, the radiation symbol—if this is illuminated, the x-ray is energized. It should function just like the red stack light.

Next is the belt on light, it is illuminated while the belt is running.

The machine running signal is a green running stick person. It will be running when the machine is inspecting. This means the x-ray is on, the belt is running, and the software is handling images.

Then there is a normalization indicator. It will be on during any normalization or calibration process. Do not have product in the tunnel while this indicator is on.

This triangle is an error indicator. Most messages in Simultask will be in a bubble that points at this indicator. Touching the indicator while a message bubble is displayed will hide the bubble. Touch again to unhide it. Some messages only need to be acknowledged by pressing this indicator or the ‘X’ in the bubble. Only the highest priority message is displayed, so if you have multiple errors, they must be resolved in sequence or read using the error log.

The stacked lines are processing load indicators. Typically, this has no activity or a few green bars. The machine may need to be reconfigured by an Eagle Technician if this is consistently in the red.

The barrel-shaped indicator relates to database network activity. It is hidden if there is no database connection to be configured. If there is a configurable database connection but no communication, the barrel is red. If it is green, the machine is communicating with the database.

Main Menu

Date and time appear here at the bottom of the screen. It is configured to match Windows settings from the administrator mode.

Now we look at the upper-right corner of the screen, we see the name of the current product profile we have selected.

Below that we have the number of accepted passes, then rejects, and weight, if configured.

Down at the bottom right-hand corner of the display is the Menu Button. What is on this menu is configurable, and only contains the User Level menu by default. This is the same User Level Menu we accessed earlier using the icon on the bottom left corner of the screen.