High Speed Camera for Packaging Application

Hello Johnny C,

The first obvious question will be, "How fast is your machine?" There are lots of cameras out there, but the characteristics you want will depend on how fast the machine or process is moving and which lenses you choose.

Without getting into substantial detail I can tell you that in order to see something that should not be, you will need a shutter speed of at least 1/250 th of a second. Typically, however, you will need to consider speeds from 1/1000 to 1/5000 of a second and then you have memory size concerns. You may also need some sort of easy trigger or release to capture your image without overwriting the memory with non-event recordings.

A simple video camera and VCR or DVD recorder may provide most of what you need but there are likely better cameras out there that will work better with the rest of your existing equipment. Do a search, contact some salesmen and have them do a demonstration for you. Then make your choices based on what will work.

Based on my experience, a camera may catch the crash (if you get the right angle, lighting, and shutter speed) but it won't catch the cause. That requires you to look upstream at what is going on before the crash. To succeed in troubleshooting, one has to look at where and why the trouble started. There you are likely to find all kinds of simple rules of physics that were completely overlooked by the designer such as inappropriate center of gravity, or misshaped forms, or even transfer devices that not centered as they should be.

If you are dealing with continuous motion (not indexed) then you will need some sort of timing reference in your video. If the motion is indexed, you need to look hard at whether all devices line up when the index stops. All too many times I have seen a whole machine blamed for the damage caused by 1 or 2 out of 30+ identical heads.

Perhaps your money would be better invested in machines that always know where their parts are during every part of the motion. Position feedback is underrated. It can tell you if other devices (especially pneumatics) are in need of maintenance. Obviously you will need to learn something about where or why the conditions occur before you will know where to look for the trouble. While a camera can be very helpful, it may be more about where and how it is placed. Beyond that, you will need the ability to keep what you captured and to know when that occurred.

Best of luck!