Patent 7752748 was granted and assigned to Panasonic on July, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A method for detecting a condition of a nozzle member of a multi-nozzle type component mounting head, in which it is determined that a nozzle is pressed against a load cell when the difference between a measured vertical position of the nozzle and a reference positional information of the nozzle is equal to or greater than a determined value and the measured vertical position of the nozzle is at a lower level position than the reference positional information, and when it is determined that the nozzle is pressed against the load cell, measuring the output value of the load cell.