CIGARETTE MAKING MACHINE INCLUDING BAND INSPECTION

An optical inspection system mounts on a cigarette making machine (200) or like system, and detects the presence of bands (5) having irregular widths or spacings. In response to the detection of irregular bands (5) the optical inspection system instructs the cigarette making machine (200) to reject cigarettes which will be subsequently made from portions of the cigarette paper containing the irregular bands. The optical inspection system includes a sensor (210) which can accommodate different types of cigarette paper, and band material having varying reflectance properties. In operation, sensor circuitry detects the range of voltages produced by a sensor detector (210), and formulates a peak value (or average peak value) for the range of voltages. The circuitry then takes a percentage of this peak value to form a threshold value. This threshold value is compared with the AC signal from the sensor detector (210). If the AC signal exceeds the threshold, then the circuitry asserts a signal to indicate that a band is present. The output of the sensor is fed to a computer (212). The computer detects whether the bands detected by the sensor (210) have regular band spacing and width.