They were selected because their cost fit Datacube's budget constraints, but their uniform, structured illumination also enabled the Black Widow system to detect smaller flaws, such as holes and pits, across wider surfaces. The fibers each have a 0.66 numerical aperture and deliver light from four halogen bulbs at either end. A rod lens focuses the light into a line roughly 0.25 in. StockerYale can customize the rod lens to vary both its length and the width of its focus. This type of array can also use LEDs, but these light sources don't deliver the same intensity as halogen.
Illumination can make or break web inspection systems, which meld images from multiple cameras.
The fiber arrays' uniform illumination ensures that defects detected by the camera are in fact defects, and not variations in one or more light sources. That makes illumination the easiest thing to fix or replace. He also noted that loyalty plays a role in an integrator's selection of components. Datacube continues to integrate StockerYale's arrays in each new generation of the Black Widow because it has met the integrator's cost and performance windows. Laurin Publishing Co. Inc. All rights reserved.