hardware triggering with NI-1429

[PatrickR]

Hi, I am having touble getting the hardware trigger to work with the NI-1429 and the Atmel Aviiva SM2 CL 2014 camera.  We had a working setup but the computer crashed after we moved the lab and I have had to install from scratch more or less (Labview 8.5 was installed, but not Vision).   We had this both working in Labview and in MATLAB (I wrote an adaptor for the IMAQ toolbox)  Now neither program works (even after a recomple of my adaptor),  and I can't get the hardware trigger to work in MAX, or in the LLGrab example.  Free run seems to run fine, however.  The Labview code was done on NI Vision 3.8, but now the current version is 4.5.   Also, our older machine was Windows XP SP1 now we are running SP3.   I have verified that the trigger signal is being sent correctly from the DAQ.   I would appreciate any help.  Thanks.

[SamiBenF]

Hi,

Could you please provide some screenshots of the errors you get in MAX or LV ?

Are you using a standard icd file prrovided with IMAQ or a custom one ?

Can you make sure the camera is in triggered mode using the CommCam software from ATMEL ?

[PatrickR]

Here is the screenshot.  It is a timeout error.  I get a similiar mesage in LabView. 

I believe the camera file wasn't supplied with the NI-IMAQ distrubution.   I have attached it (as a text file, apparently it won't let me post a *.icd)  Keep in mind this worked on our older system... so not sure why it would be a problem with the camera file.

[Joe D.]

Hi Patrick,

Based on everything that you said and past experiance I really the main issue is that we do not have the  icd camera file. I found an icd file on our industrial camera advisior <link>

[PatrickR]

If the problem was the camera file, why then would it have worked on the other machine with the same file? I will triple check we are using the right one ... CommCam (from e2v) tels me the camera model is an Aviiva SM2 CL 2014 (not the M2) .. not sure where we got the ICD...

Also, I am a little confused as to exactly what the camera file does beyond supplying parameter info to MAX or other applications that use it ...so they know what parameter names to use for SetCameraAttrubute ...  in my Matlab  adaptor I hard coded these.  Is the camera file "loaded" into the library somehow?   I have noticed that when I load the wrong camera file into MAX, our Labview code doesn't work ... even though I don't believe it deals with the camera file... (I am not the author of the code .. trying to decipher it)  I didn't notice any NI-IMAQ functions that explicitly dealt with the camea file.

[PatrickR]

We are still having this problem... the camera will not work right in external trigger mode.  The above camera file was for the Aviiva M2, we have the SM2 model.   It will not work in free run but the posted camera file will.  

In external trigger mode, it appears if I do a small acquisitionj window ( like 5 or 10 lines), it does pick up before the timeout.  The frame rate is way off though ( maybe 2-3 fps for a 1 khZ signal!) 

I looked at the camera file in the Camera File Genrator.  It says it genrates a pulse train that 'Starts Low' at 1 an 'Starts High' for 60.  (Since apparently the internal clock is 50 MHz, thsi means a pulse period of 60/50 MHz = 1.2 uS..  But what does this have to do with the incoming external trigger? Why should I need to generate a pulse train, I thought that NI 1429 board would simply route the signal to the CC1 control line in Camera Link?

[Joe D.]

Hi Patrick,

Before we dig into to this too much lets just cover some basics.

How are you triggering? on the board to camera Are you using a camera breakout board?

What happens if you increase the timeout? Does that camera work just fine with a free capture (no triggering)?

[SamiBenF]

Patrick,

If you just need to trigger each line by an external signal you input in the 1429 then you can indeed route it to the camera this way :

 - In MAX, go to the camera attribute tab of the 1429 channel

 - Uncheck "Use Default source"

 - In the CC1 list, select the input line corresponding to your external trigger signal

 - Press Save

Let me know if this works

[PatrickR]

I think we figured out what the problem was ..SMB jack is broken (pin broke off). The external trigger signal was never getting to the board properly   We tried to shunt the jack but that did't seem to work, so we order a jack and hopefully we will be able to solder off the other jack and solder the new one on.