Insight (Wales & West) Ltd has teamed up with SANYO to provide a customised machine monitoring system for the UK solar cell specialist, G24 Innovations.
G24 Innovations’ machines are partially sealed to maintain constant temperature and humidity levels and are also totally guarded for health and safety reasons. John O’Connell, Development Director for Insight, who are based just north of Cardiff, said: “Lighting was the key issue. We needed to match a CCTV camera with suitable supplementary lighting which when working together, could provide the exceptionally high resolution images specified by the client.”
Insight established that SANYO’s VCC-4795P Day/Night colour camera with an Intelligent Backlight Compensation function providing clear views of moving objects, could capture the required quality video and then considered various lighting options. “Standard halogen was not suitable due to heat generation, space and maintenance requirements,” added John. The latest generation CCTV LED lighting was also dismissed due to the requirement for uniformity of light. An additional issue which had to be taken into account was the highly reflective surface of the product which meant that most standard lighting would reflect back directly at the camera, giving poor resolution of surface detail.
Insight found the solution lay with its Machine Vision LED products which utilise a 300mm LED Linear Array light with 10 x 40 degree optics. These remain cool during operation and offer a 60,000 hour lifespan whilst giving an even distribution of light at the required working distance. Three SANYO VCC-4795P cameras were installed each using the LED lighting to achieve the required lighting effect.
“This is not the first time we have fused Intelligent Machine Vision products and CCTV equipment but this was a particular challenging project and we needed to think creatively to find the correct solution”, said John.
The machine monitoring system has allowed G24 Innovations to comply with Health and Safety regulations whilst maintaining control of their manufacturing process.
Background Information: The word ‘SANYO’ means ‘three oceans’ – the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. SANYO to date has 136 group companies in 27 countries world-wide and employs over 50,000 people. The CCTV division manufactures cameras, domes, digital video recorders and monitors.
