News | August 27, 2007

Controlling Light For Machine Vision Illumination

Source: MERCRON

The control of light for machine vision illumination projects and applications has been a pain point for many end users in various industries for a long time. Lamps can burn out quickly, which can compromise image quality and result in expensive downtime. This is why MERCRON, the experts in Machine Vision Illumination, developed the technology to cut back (and in some cases, completely remove) the headaches that can be associated with machine vision illumination.

Our lamp controllers for Machine Vision Illumination offer several benefits:

  • Real-time optical feedback feature – MERCRON lamp controllers have managed to do what no other lamp ballast has done: regulate the light itself – not just the lamp – to within ¼ % of the required intensity, thus compensating for any disturbance in the light level.
  • Wide-ratio, variable dimming – from 5%-100% without damaging the lamps
  • "All's well" signal to notify the user when the light "falls out" of regulation
  • Remote control capability
  • No 60-Hz ripple
  • The new 230V lamp controllers have on-board PFC to help meet EMC requirements in Europe

It's time to face the facts:

    Fact 1) Guaranteed IMAGING QUALITY requires absolutely stable light – truly "ripple-free", steady as sunshine! Otherwise, the usable resolution of the camera is reduced by the degree of the light's inconsistency and the lack of uniformity within the machine vision system.

    Fact 2) Light-source instability is the fundamental cause of poor image quality; so this is where MERCRON's expertise in machine vision lighting comes in. We had the customer in mind when we specially designed our lamp controllers to produce maintenance-free, regulated light, i.e., "set it and forget it", programmable light within the machine vision system.

If your system counts on every pixel, there is no substitute for MERCRON's light regulated lamp controllers. Visit the following product pages to find the right lamp controller for your Machine Vision Illumination application:

SOURCE: MERCRON