Machine Vision Store

Manufactured by Spectrum Illumination for use with their Monster strobe controllers, the “Monster Brain” brings new flexibility to your lighting system. You can now precisely synchronize multiple cameras and lights. And, when used in conjunction with our light controllers having an analog intensity input, it’s easy to set the intensity of multiple lights for different product types.

The Monster Brain sends signals to (revision H and newer) light controllers via a DIN rail bus connector. The connector has four independent user-configurable channels, each of which can control multiple light controllers. Each channel may be used to strobe lights or adjust light intensity.

Consider for example a vision system that has two cameras and three lights. Assume that the first camera is triggered by a photo-eye, but that the second camera must be triggered 8 milliseconds after the first. Furthermore, the necessary intensity of two lights varies by product type. Use the Monster Brain to control light intensity and synchronize the lights and cameras as needed for each product type.

You can configure up to 63 different product types. The product types can be loaded through the web interface, using hardwired discrete inputs, or via ASCII commands. Each product type includes information such as strobe pulses, strobe on-delay, strobe on-time, strobe off-time, light intensities, and camera trigger delays.

The Monster Brain has an embedded web server, so no additional software is needed. Connect an Ethernet cable, open your web browser, type in the IP address, and the configuration window opens. If you prefer, you may send ASCII command strings over TCP/IP from a PLC or PC to modify the configuration. Each Monster Brain can be used either stand-alone, or as part of a network.

The Monster Brain’s electrical inputs include NPN trigger, PNP trigger, 6 product selectors, and product load. Outputs include product select acknowledge, camera 1 PNP trigger, camera 1 NPN trigger, camera 2 PNP trigger, and camera 2 NPN trigger.