Physical connection of multiple cameras with EVS

[Frank_Noe]

how i can connect 5 GIGE vision cameras with EVS and i`m using vision builder as software and i have terminal block that its manual 

https://www.ni.com/docs/en-US/bundle/374051c/resource/374051c.pdf 

the number of inputs of it not enough to the 5 cameras i wanna connect.

[BlueCheese]

You would use a gigabit switch (ideally ones that supports jumbo frames) and hook the switch to the EVS and the cameras to the switch. If you will be acquiring from all the cameras simultaneously you should also change the bandwidth control settings in the advanced camera attributes to limit each camera to 200Mbit (so they aren't competing for the same 1000Mbit of bandwidth).

Eric

[Frank_Noe]

I have for each camera one input 24v pulse comes from PLC and I dedicated ISO 8 for it and three outputs TTL1, for camera triggering TTL2 for light triggering and TTL3 for decision making. When I`ll use the 5 cameras I`ll need 5 inputs like ISO8 and 15 outputs from TTL...which is not available with the terminal block accessory  which the vision builder software i use configured only ISO 5 and ISO 8 and TTL1, TTL2, TTL3 and TTL4 for pulse generating which not enough to my whole application...how i can get such number of inputs and outputs   

[Brad]

The EVS does not have that many inputs to trigger pulses off of or that many outputs to generate pulses. Are your cameras synchronized, so some of the inputs/outputs could be used for the same cameras (i.e. do any of your cameras have the same start trigger?) Can you have a single trigger for the camera and the strobe instead of seperate triggers? If there is no way to reduce the number of inputs/outputs needed, you will either need to get multiple EVS units (or you could also get a CVS which is cheaper and have it just handle some of the triggering for you), or you could get some cDAQ modules, or you could move to a PC with multiple 825x boards (same IO mix as EVS).

One 8254/EVS/CVS can currently only support 6 output lines for pulses (all TTL type) and 8 additional lines for decision making (4 ISO Out and 4, so you should be able to have enough lines for two pulses for each camera (camera trigger and stobe), and at least one line for decision for each camera with two EVS/CVS/825x type devices.

Sorry I don't have a better suggestion for your existing HW setup, but hopefully you can reuse some of the inputs/outputs so you don't need so many per camera.

Thanks,

Brad

[Brad]

It's also worth noting that the breakout box you mentioned doesn't expose all the I/O of the EVS/825x. Two of the TTL outputs that can support pulse generation are not on the breakout box, so this will limit how many pulses you can get per device. The CVS exposes these additional TTL outputs as SMB connectors on the device, but otherwise you would have to have a custom cable made to get to these lines on the EVS or 825x (I have passed this short coming along before, but no new breakout was ever made).

https://www.ni.com/docs/en-US/bundle/371578d/resource/371578d.pdf Check out page 3-6 and notice the 37-pin breakout box you have has N/C next to TRIG 1/TTL Out 8 and TRIG 2/TTL Out 9 which are both pulse generators even though the 44 pin connector on the device has these lines available.

Hope this helps save you some time.

Brad

[BruceAmmons]

I would also consider the possibility of triggering the cameras directly from the PLC, if possible.  If you are just echoing the signals from the PLC to the camera, there is no reason to go through the computer for that.  The software gets a little more complicated, but not too much.  It might actually get simpler since you wouldn't have to process the trigger signals.

Bruce

[Frank_Noe]

Thanks Bruce! for the idea of triggering the camera directly from the

PLC...one more thing when more than one camera coneccted to EVS the jumbo frame

needs to be set 9014 bytes as mentioned here

https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA03q000000x0UsCAI&l=en-US

for increasing the packet size. but when i tried to implement this with my

network adoptor i found the Jumbo Frame can be initiated either for Gige

vision only or all application as in the image. where i can set the Jumbo Frame as 9014