Patent ID: 7516628

Claim:
An on-line thickness gauge (OLTG) for measuring a thickness of a moving pre-cut glass substrate, said system comprising: a conveyor that grasps a top of the pre-cut glass substrate and moves the pre-cut glass substrate; a glass capture device through which the moving pre-cut glass substrate travels where the glass capture device captures both a front surface and a back surface of the moving pre-cut glass substrate, where the conveyor still grasping the top of the pre-cut glass substrate moves the pre-cut glass substrate through the glass capture device; wherein said glass capture device includes: a Y-guide that includes a pair of guides that capture and channel the moving pre-cut glass substrate into place to be received by a stabilizing device; said stabilizing device through which the previously captured moving pre-cut glass substrate travels where the stabilizing device stabilizes both the front surface and the back surface of a bottom of the previously captured moving pre-cut glass substrate, where the conveyor still grasping the top of the pre-cut glass substrate moves the pre-cut glass substrate through the glass capture device; wherein said stabilizing device includes a plurality of belt-driven rollers that drives both the front surface and the back surface of the previously captured pre-cut glass substrate; a laser source that emits a single beam at a front surface of the stabilized moving pre-cut glass substrate; a detector that receives a first beam reflected by the front surface of the stabilized moving pre-cut glass substrate and receives a second beam reflected by a back surface of the stabilized moving pre-cut glass substrate; and a processor that analyzes the first beam and the second beam received by said detector to determine a distance between the first beam and the second beam where the distance is used to determine the thickness of the stabilized moving pre-cut glass substrate.