01 Sep 2006 Optoelectronic controller cabinets for non-contact surface profiling. Non-contact Surface Profiling Controllers
Armstrong Optical Ltd of Northampton, in keeping with being at the forefront of non-contact surface profiling technology, have recently released two new optical controllers to operate in conjunction with the STIL S.A. range of dimensional measurement systems.
Traditionally the STIL S.A. optical controller systems have utilised a halogen lamp as a white-light source for the STIL S.A. chromatic confocal sensors. The two new controllers – the CHR150-L and the CCS ALPHA – both have LED light sources equivalent to 50W halogen sources.
The use of an LED light source not only ensures a much longer lifetime (several tens of thousands of hours) and lower power consumption, but also guarantees the ability to easily measure surfaces with a wide dynamic range of reflection characteristics without swamping the response of the sensor system.
Whilst the CHR150-L uses an embedded DSP board for its on-board data processing, the CCS ALPHA uses a new FPGA board allowing unparalleled processing power and a route to higher measuring frequencies and sophisticated measuring procedures. Both controller systems have built-in digital interfaces (RS232 for the CHR150-L and both RS232 and Ethernet for the CCS ALPHA) allowing remote control for production line integration.
Both the CHR150-L and the CCS APLHA are compatible with the existing range of STIL S.A. chromatic confocal sensor systems offering sub-nanometre to millimetric measurement resolutions across a huge variety of surfaces from rubber/paper/metals to MEMS and semiconductor components. When used in conjunction with the STIL S.A. MicroMesure 3D measurement systems components up to 200mm can very simply be interrogated for shape, roughness, flatness, texture, microtopography and thickness. Alternatively the modular nature of the controllers and sensors lends them to easy integration into third-party measurement systems.
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