OPTI-MATCH | Cameron | Panel Layup & Color Matching

Operation of the Opti-Match is simple. The operator enters the desired panel width into the computer. The machine is quickly adjusted by a hand crank to accommodate the board length. Boards are then placed on the infeed of the machine. The Opti-Match singulates the boards and feeds them under color and width sensors. The computer uses this information to select the optimal combination of boards to build an accurately sized, color matched and color blended panel. To build the panel the Opti-Match uses a series of lifters to re-arrange the order of the boards on the conveyor. The newly arranged boards continue to travel down the conveyor to the stacker. The stacker piles the created panels into a neat stack using a self-leveling scissors lift. When the lift is full, the machine stops itself. The operator rolls the stack off the lift and raises it for the next stack. Color matching is a difficult job. Since every human sees color differently, matchers are difficult to train and consistency is hard to maintain. A human matcher might consider as many as ten boards when determining which boards to use to build a panel, all while trying to keep the panel size close to the desired width and also attempting to maintain uni- form color. Because of the large amount of information the operator has to process, panel building is a painfully slow operation and usually, either size or color suffers. The OptiThe Opti-Match considers twenty-two boards at a time. It uses its computer power to analyze hundreds of thousands of possible combinations, all in a fraction of a second, to determine the best combination of boards to match both size and color. The computer then uses complicated color algorithms to arrange the boards in the order that best blends the colors. All of this is done very quickly. The Opti-Match allows one untrained operator to match and size panels at the rate of four trained matchers… consistently all day long.