HH Series Tethered Constant Color Sensors

Industrial monitoring of a flow of material for constant color may be implemented with tethered HH series instruments configured for hard mounting at a fixed distance from a sample surface. See the description for the 12-mm area of view part number 2000620 (12 MM On Line). The 26 mm AOV optics are also available in industrial sensors. The 12-mm optics configuration provides better gloss rejection and should be used with any shiny material. Units with larger areas of view and other optical configurations with the same interconnection and control are available as custom products. We have designed sensors for multiple spot measurements on 3D assemblies and other systems with an area of view of over one meter.

Operations

These sensors require external power and may be configured for the following operations:

Stand-alone operation with asynchronous RS232 indication of color Pass/Fail.

Stand-alone operation with polled RS232 indication of color Pass/Fail.

Stand-alone operation with contact closure or current loop indication of color Pass/Fail.

External computer operation with parametric color output.

In the three stand-alone operations the instrument may be completely in a stand-alone mode, or the target color and tolerance may be set up via RS232 commands from an external computer. When the instrument is completely stand-alone, only one tolerance dimension (DE) is supported. The DE may be in any supported color space including CMC, but only one limit may be set from the instrument keyboard, and the instrument must measure the target color. When the instrument is set up from an external computer, each of the color components (L*a*b or L*c*h) may have its own positive and negative tolerances, and the target color may be loaded from the external computer.

In stand-alone operation with asynchronous RS232 indication of color Pass/Fail, the instrument requires input power and RS232 connection; it sends a message to its RS232 port whenever it detects a color that is outside the tolerance range. The instrument will also respond to input commands to start and stop measurement operations and report measurement statistics.

In stand-alone operation with polled RS232 indication of color Pass/Fail, the instrument requires input power and RS232 connection. It responds to input commands with the most recent Pass/Fail status . The instrument will also respond to input commands to start and stop measurement operations and report measurement statistics.

In stand-alone operation with contact closure or current loop indication of color Pass/Fail, the instrument requires input power and a hardwired connection; and it then performs a current path contact closure (opto isolator output) via port whenever it measures a color that is outside the tolerance range. A second contact closure indicates instrument error conditions. The polarity of these two indications is programmable from the instrument keypad.

In an external computer operation with parametric color output, the functions described above plus statistical reports, data gathering, and multiple instrument support are available from an external PC running NT with appropriate RS232 port hardware.

Connections

The standard connector in the HH series instruments is a six-position modular (RJ-11, used in TELCO and network), which provides three power and three communication signals. The cable normally runs from a RS232 transition box (3 x 4 x 1 inch), which accepts dc power input and provides a 9 pin RS232 connection to an external computer. In single-user PC applications the transition box is intended to be mounted to the side of the monitor. Power input to standard instruments is floating DC 12 to 24 volt. Current is .25 amp max, and less than .1 amp typical. Maximum distance from the transition box to the sensor is limited to 50 feet, while the distance from the transition box to the external computer is standard RS232 (thousands of feet).

For industrial applications several other options are supported:

A four-wide version of the interface is available as a custom order. This allows one RS232 port on the external computer and one DC power supply to run up to four sensors. Sensors are selected by use of the modem control lines in the RS232 port. With power supply and four 15 foot cables this interface is priced at US $1749 list.

A stackable eight-wide polled version of the interface is available on a custom order. This allows one RS232 port on the external computer and one DC power supply to run up to eight sensors, and a second third and fourth eight-wide interface may be added in series for a total of 32 sensors. In this case the software in the external computer must poll each sensor. This configuration is not recommended when there are time constraints on the operation. With power supply and eight 15 foot cables this interface is priced at US $2499 list.

A standard version of the sensor may have an alternate interconnection, which provides separate power, communications, and contact closure connections at the sensor. In this case each sensor must have its own RS232 port on the external computer, if RS232 is used, and each sensor must have its own external dc power supply. See the description of individual sensors for pricing of alternate connections.

External Computer Support

An NT application is available, which supports any multiple port communications hardware supported by NT, as well as the four-wide and stackable eight-wide interfaces described above. This is an instrument setup and color quality control program, which may be used to set up sensors for stand-alone operation and/or to control groups of sensors for process monitoring. If multiple process setups are to be monitored, then the instruments on a given four-wide interface or polled stack must be assigned to the same process.

The program supports most color calculations and instrument control functions and can apply statistical and limit tests to any of the color coordinates or instrument data.

This program supports the following setup functions:

Identification of which unit, if any, is connected to a given path and the connection type,

Calibration of an individual unit,

Stability and chromatic checking for a given unit,

Identification of sets of units to be grouped to monitor a given process,

Standard (target color) and limit download to a given unit or process set,

Configuration for stand-alone operation for a given unit or process set,

Process monitoring initiation for a stand-alone process set,

Extraction of statistical data from a stand-alone process set.

When used as an active (real time) monitor, the program supports the following operations:

Measurement initiation at fixed time intervals or in response to an external RS232 command.

Polling at fixed time intervals or in response to an external RS232 command.

Real time display of run plots and cumulative histograms.

Limit warning via display and RS232 command of out of limit conditions.

The US list for this application is $1990. Customized versions start at $10,000.