Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Replacing fluorescent lighting

Some years ago, when machine vision and I were both young, it was common to use fluorescent lighting. Gradually we got smarter and began using high frequency fluorescent, which eliminated the mains flicker but still needed regular replacement to keep the vision system running. More recently we’ve adopted LED lighting, and our systems have become much more reliable.

But many factories have a problem: what to do with those older ‘legacy’ vision systems that still run on fluorescent lighting?

Unfortunately it’s not as simple as ripping out the old lights and plugging in the new. For starters, there’s the issue of color. Unless you’re going to re-write the vision application you need the part to look the same under the new lighting as under the old. Different intensity will present problems too – close down the aperture? Increase the gain?

Well I have good news. Metaphase Technologies Inc of Bensalem, PA. have a range – a very wide range – of “
fluorescent replacement” white LED lights for machine vision.

While perhaps not the answer to every problem, they do offer a relatively low cost path to updating an aging system. Take 5 minutes to have a look.

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