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Lighting plays a fundamental role in the effectiveness of any Machine Vision system, and Gardasoft's state of the art Industrial LED Technologies ensure that the highest performance demands can be met for both Area Scan and Line Scan applications. Gardasoft's LED Pulse Controllers are compatible with practically any LED Machine Vision light, providing up to a 10 times increase in light intensity output. Our LED Lighting range has multiple options for wavelengths (including UV and IR), and for Surface and Web Inspection applications it includes high speed Line Lights with an intensity of up to 2500kLux. The Gardasoft White Paper on LED Controller technology is a useful reference for the principles of attaining maximum performance for Machine Vision illumination.
LEDs are current driven devices, and their brightness is approximately proportional to the amount of current flowing through the LED. LEDs have a current rating (which is closely controlled), and a voltage rating (which can vary widely from batch to batch). Therefore for high performance, high precision vision applications it is essential to accurately control the current within any associated LED lighting device.
At their current rating, LEDs and LED Lights will output 100% brightness. However, it is possible to get more than 100% brightness by driving with more current rating for short pulses. This is called Overdriving, and Gardasoft SafePower™ and SafeSense™ technology enables users to do this with ease and complete confidence.
Overdriving is used with Pulsed Lighting, where it brings benefit to most Vision applications. The exceptions being applications where the camera is exposed for a high percentage of the time, for example Line Scan (see Gardasoft VLX Line Scan illumination solutions).
Converting a constant illumination system to pulsed illumination is straightforward. The trigger for the camera is sent to a lighting controller. The controller provides precise pulse width timing, power and brightness control for the lighting pulse. This ensures that the lighting pulses during the camera exposure time and that the light energy is the same for every image.
Gardasoft Vision's controllers generally have two modes of operation - Pulsed or Continuous output.
Continuous output is where the lighting is on all the time. This is the easiest mode to use as the intensity of the lighting is the only parameter that needs to be set.
In pulsed mode the lighting is only on when required. The controller receives a trigger signal when a pulse is required. The delay from the trigger to the output pulse, the length of the pulse and the intensity of the pulse are all configurable.
By using pulsing, it is possible to freeze the image of moving objects. Gardasoft's controllers have fine adjustment of the pulse timing, which is often more flexible than the camera timing. The camera can be set for a longer exposure time and the light pulsed on only for a short time to freeze the motion.
