Wednesday, March 3, 2010

A machine vision construction kit

Once you’ve unpacked your lights and cameras the next task is to mount them all, securely, so that you don’t get called back to the line every time something moves. I’ve always found this difficult: those Bogen “Magic Arms” are an absolute no-no and while Edmund Optics sell a great range of hardware it’s not really suitable for industrial automation. Nine times out of ten I end up having brackets specially made.

German start-up autoVimation aims to change all that. They offer a “construction kit” that is supposed to simplify all the mounting and alignment issues.

I think it’s a great idea but there’s not enough information on the website for me to tell how it would all work in practice. What I really want are some downloadable CAD files. I’d also like to see it interface with the 80/20 aluminum extrusion that we like to work with here in the US.

And while I’m grumbling away, I’d also like to see an on-line store with prices displayed.

Apart from all that though, I think it’s a great idea.

No comments: