Automatic Optical Inspection, Basler's New Ace Camera acA2040-180km

Automated Optical Inspection (AOI), is ideal for many manufacturing processes where the need for maximum inspection coverage and measured feedback is required. The automated visual inspection camera can be placed in the production line, where it autonomously scans the device under test for both catastrophic failure and/or quality defects. Problems are then recognized and corrected early in the manufacturing process, negating the need for costly item recall. As an indispensable fast and precise method of inspecting printed circuit boards (PCBs) and electronic assemblies, the automatic optical inspection camera assures that the quality of product leaving the fabrication line is high, and that the items are built correctly and without manufacturing flaws.

Basler’s new, high performance Ace Series acA2040-180km machine vision, area scan, camera link camera is this type of Automatic Optical Inspection hero.

[caption id="attachment_6039" align="aligncenter" width="240"] Automatic Optical Inspection Camera, Basler's ACA240-180KM[/caption]

The acA2040-180km has CMOSIS imaging technology, CMV4000 2/3” CMOS progressive scan and a global shutter sensor. This monochromatic camera delivers ultra-fast 180 full frames per second at 4 MP resolution, and is the ideal camera for Automatic Optical Inspection. The acA2040-180km's advantages compared to classic Camera Link cameras are its size, weight, power consumption, and pixel output per second. Minute at 1.71L x 1.14W x 1.14H inches (43.5L x 29W x 29Hmm), the camera weighs less than 3.17 ounces (less than 90 grams). A Camera Link camera this size has never before provided performance of this significance. It has a pixel size of 5.5 x 5.5 µm, and adjustments can be made on the camera’s black level, gain, and area of interest. And with its improved trigger/timed exposure control, simple integration is possible, even with time critical situations. With 2048 x 2048 resolution, and 1 inch optical sensor, the camera covers the scope of ultra-fast high performance, packaged in a housing that is less than two inches square! An additional advantage is that because the Basler ace cameras use the same 29 x 29 mm footprint that has been standard on analog cameras for some time, replacement of analog cameras is tremendously easy. The Basler acA2040-180km interfaces with Base, Medium and Full Camera Link frame grabbers, and supports Power over Camera Link (PoCL). In all machine vision systems, there has to be a means of capturing, and then transferring the data from the camera to the host computer. That is where a frame grabber comes in. By definition, a frame grabber is an electrical circuit board that is cable attached to a camera, then plugged into a host computer system. A single cable operates camera power, and transfers data between the Basler ace camera and a host computer, makes using the acA2040-180km cameras additionally convenient And, camera interfacing is easy with the KBN-PCE-CL4-F BitFlow Karbon Frame Grabber, turning the camera into a computer-based vision system.

Machine vision cameras differ from consumer-type cameras in two ways. One is that they do not provide an integrated LCD type display or require an operator; they are under the direct control of the vision system for capturing images. The other is that machine vision cameras connect directly to a host computer, which retrieves and processes the images that the camera has captured. The BitFlow Karbon KBN-PCE-CL4-F is the world’s first four-camera PCI frame grabber that is able to obtain up to four Base CL cameras or two Full CL (Camera Link) cameras (including 10-tap CL) at the same time. With an x8 PCI Express interface, the board can DMA at speeds up to2 gigabytes per second. BitFlow's camera interface products have been built around their revolutionary FlowThru technology that provides zero latency access to data, amazing low CPU usage, and limitless DMA destination size. [caption id="attachment_6057" align="alignright" width="225"] BitFlow Karbon KBN-PCE-CL4-F Frame Grabber[/caption] This KBN-PCE-CL4-F frame grabber was designed for two specific applications: circumstances where more than one camera is necessary, because it can obtain up to 4 cameras (reducing both the system cost and hardware footprint), and in applications where particularly elevated data speed and/or frame rates are essential. It can handle up to 160 bits at 85 MHz pixel clock rate, and DMA at data rates up to 2.0 GB/S (GigaBytes per Second). The Karbon-CL is the first member of BitFlow's Karbon family, a platform that can accommodate a wide variety of virtual frame grabbers i.e., a virtual frame grabber is a duplicate of a standard frame grabber. This camera can be configured as two full Camera Link frame grabbers, or it can be arranged as four base Camera Link frame grabbers. These virtual frame grabbers can be customized to meet OEM’s (Original Equipment Manufacturer) specific needs, and since the Karbon architecture can sustain a wide variety of different virtual frame grabbers, there is with no need for a change in the hardware. The Karbon-CL uses an x8 PCI Express bus interface, and as such, PCI Express bus offers huge increases in DMA performance over the PCI bus. The PCI Express bus is always peer to peer, so the Karbon-CL does not share the bus with any other devices The board will work in any slot that it fits in, not only x16 and x8 slots, the trending x4 and x1 slots that use x16 connectors. Performance will be degraded in x1 and x4 slots, but the board will work well in applications that don't require maximum data rate. This dual, full Camera Link frame grabber supports both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems. The Karbon KBN-PCE-CL4-F Frame Grabber is supported by a GUI camera file editing utility (CamEd). It has the ability to obtain fixed or variable size images and features a programmable ROI (Region Of Interest) sub-windowing capability. The board delivers of camera control signals (CC1, CC2, CC3, CC4) and sync inputs (LVAL, FVAL, PCLK, trigger and encoder) for each camera connected to the board (up to four cameras).The signals are completely independent, though there are specifications for driving all cameras from a signal set up encoder/trigger signals, and also a large number of programmable general purpose outputs and inputs that are not tied to the camera's timing. The Karbon-CL board, supports not only simple triggering modes, but also complex, application-specific triggering and control interactions with the hardware situation.