CVS camera disconnects and causes reboot

[Hony]

Exactly, I don't think, that I can do more than to train maintenance to solve this issue Asap. One from our lines has today completely two hours of breakdown due to this.

It happend again after 8 months of production. If I want to solve It I must be able to repeat failure. It is looking like random.

Two month's ago I had problem with overwriteing of some tests inside the memory of CVS. Files was there, but probably corrupted, we used backup to solve It.  We use CVS on our lines on the base of my proposal 3years, with few but very hard breakdowns, due to fact, that when something is working properly noone has chance to be trained for maintenance of it.

Jan

[mvonstein]

>> We use CVS on our lines on the base of my proposal 3years, with few but very hard breakdowns, due to fact, that when something is working properly noone has chance to be trained for maintenance of it.

This is *exactly* our experience too. Almost all of the time everything is great, but when it's not the going is very rough.  Since I have kids, it reminds me of an old nursery rhyme, "There was a little girl with a little curl.  When she was good she was very good, but when she was bad she was horrid!  

Thanks, 

Mike 

[MartyP]

At least now I know I'm not the only one with this problem. I too recommended NI Vision and still think it is the most practical solution. I have three identical systems running on identical machines and only one gives me trouble. I was sure I found the problem when I changed the firewire cable and everything worked OK. Then last week it stopped working again. After restarting the entire system it was working again. I don't think it is the camera. I think it either loses communication through the firewire cable or possibly the 1394 driver becomes corrupt. Firewire cameras aren't supposed to be affected too much by noise, but I'm sure the CVS doesn't like it. It is specific to this machine, I've changed the CVS, the camera and the firewire cable and I still have problems, but only on this machine.

Good luck, if you figure anything out please let me know.

MartyP

[MartyP]

Since my last post I have come to realize that the CVS units that are giving me trouble are units that were returned to NI for firmware upgrades. You might want to check to see if the unit you are using is compatable with the version of software you are using.

MartyP

[mvonstein]

Good observation.  Where do you find software/firmware compatability information?

Thanks,
Mike 

[MartyP]

I purchased the software and the first two CVS units at the same time in Sept of 07 with the intention of logging images from failed inspections. There is an issue with older versions of CVS-1454(rev e or older) having only 32MB of non-volatile memory and you need 64 MB for VBAI 3.5. I believe there was an issue with loading the software. NI upgraded the flash to 64 MB. I've had communication problems since but assumed it was either camera configuration or noise. I purchased another system about a year ago and havn't hade any problems at all with that one. I Thought I had it fixed when I replaced the firewire cable a couple of weeks ago, then yesterday it stopped working again. This morning after looking at my notes, I realized the two that were giving me trouble were ones that had been upgraded. I now have NI looking into the problem and will let you know what the outcome is.

MartyP

[Hony2]

Hello, I see stagnation of discussion.

I found something very interesting  ftp://ftp.ni.com/pub/devzone/pdf/tut_2977.pdf . There is writen that when is camera disconnected You can be nearly sure that it has no power. We added more hubs for eight cameras and it is looking O.K. No ocurence.

Jan 

[mvonstein]

Interesting.  So you are externally powering the cameras instead of through the firewire bus?

[Hony2]

No, when I use HUB it has it's own powersuply to inject additional power to bus wires. It is suplied through firewire. Please read pdf file. It is described on page 7.  Nice rest of day.

Jan

[MartyP]

I am still having problems with my 2 CVS units. I have sent them back to NI for evaluation and I am awaiting their response. I did discover some interesting things. When in MAX I could see the camera disappear and then re-appear a few seconds later. Unfortunately when in VBAI if this happens you are finished until you disconnect power and reboot the system. I was also reading about power supply problems with firewire cameras, but with only one camera connected to the CVS this shouldn't be a problem. I started to wonder if there is a power supply problem with my CVS units,especially since the repair report from a year ago said they fixed the IMAQ power supply. I posted a question about firewire port failure about a year and a half ago and an NI engineer said they would post the result of their findings, but nothing was ever posted. I think my problem is probably specific to the revision of my hardware. When I hear back from NI I will post their findings.

MartyP