Just screwing around

Cameras get faster, computers get faster, engineers can do more with less, but sometimes the simple things get overlooked.

Take cables. When I’m putting together an industrial inspection system I want to know that the cables are not going to shake loose from either the camera or the PC card. CameraLink is good for this because the connectors screw in, but have you tried finding Firewire components with screw fasteners? They’re as rare as hens’ teeth.

So I’m pleased to see Point Grey address this with their new 1394b PCI Express card. Not only does it let you shovel bits into the PC faster than the old PCI format, but you can screw the camera cable connectors into the card. And as some of the newest 1394b cameras, like the Grasshopper from Point Grey, and AVT’s Stingray,take screw-in connectors, we finally have the hardware to build a mechanically robust system.

Now we just need the cable companies to wake up to the demand for 1394b cables with screw-in connectors.