Importance

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Abstract

A fiber optic light line unit provides a uniform linear beam of illumination onto a target, such as a traveling web. A number of fiber optic bundles have distal ends that are butted together end to end to create a long, seamless line of uniform strip lighting. The unit has a housing in which distal portions of the fiber optic bundles fan out so that the termini of the fibers are arrayed in a single continuous fiber row at a distal face plate of the housing. The ends of the row of each bundle abut the ends of the adjacent row from another bundle. In one embodiment the housing has first and second halves that sandwich the fiber termini, and there are respective sawtooth or similar recesses that each hold a respective fiber end or terminus. A cylindrical lens can be disposed with its axis across the linear beam of light. The fibers are held with their termini at a predetermined slant angle, e.g., thirty degrees, so that the light emanating from the unit impinges on a target at an angle. This reveals defects that may be oriented in the travel direction of the web.

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First Claim