There is a delay in the video stream. When machine stops, it will take some time before the camera gets an image, codes it for USB, transfers it to PC, the PC buffers it and the video section decodes it. Depending on the cameras, used resolution and the performance of the PC, this delay can be significant.

(NOTE: This page is written in August 2021. There is definite need to address and minimize these delays, and the software will be updated in this area. Although I believe the impact of delays can be made less, this discussion will remain valid.)

To address the effect of the delays, the vision measurement system has an adjustable delay. The idea is to find how many frames should be ignored before the measurement section gets a frame that corresponds to the time when the measure command was activated, but no more.

To set the delay, click “Special Options” on the “Setup Vision Processing” page, and select “Measurement Delay” tab. The “Measure” button is a tool to find out the needed delay. For now, it only works on downlooking camera, although the delay is set individually on downlooking and uplooking cameras. Using downlooking camera, and clicking “Measure”, the machine first moves away from home position, then it moves to home and makes a measurement using Homing algorithm. Use the arrow keys to find a delay to the lowest number that gives you the same result that you get with the Measure button at the side of the algorithm table, also using Homing algorithm.

In practice, the machine doesn’t spend very much time in measuring when it is placing components; one or two frames of extra delay doesn’t much increase job run time, but gives some margin. Therefore, set the delay one or two frames more than you really need.