Firstsight Vision offers a variety of modules for OEMs for the control of machine vision components and the distribution and conversion of multiple trigger signals. These include multi-trigger modules, lighting controllers, lens controllers and trigger distribution boxes.
The CVX TriggerBox was developed by the Stemmer Imaging Group to allow signals from different sources such as frame grabbers or PLCs to be conditioned and transmitted over long distances. It provides an easy method of cleaning up imprecise or inadequate trigger signals to generate a clean TTL pulse as a trigger signal for the camera to ensure that the correct images are acquired. Distributed trigger systems allow a single trigger input to be converted to multiple trigger outputs and also allow triggers to be transmitted over long distances.
The Gardasoft CC320 Ethernet multi-trigger module allows accurate timing control for a variety of events in production line machine vision systems. These include component sensing, camera triggering and reject gate control. Accurate timing control is essential to the efficient operation of a machine vision system with a conveyor belt to ensure that measurements are made at the right time and that reject product is removed from the process. Being Ethernet based, this controller enables real time control on distributed systems, so the processing power of a vision system can be migrated to the air conditioned confines of a server room.
Lens controllers provide aperture, zoom and focus control via RS232 and soon to be released Ethernet for all dc motor controlled lenses with feedback on the position via a potentiometer, while programmable lighting controllers are available to provide complete control over all types of LED lighting. These can create a huge range of strobing set-ups.