High Speed video

Often in manufacturing machines as elsewhere in life, things happen to quickly for you to see them.

This means that trouble shooting high-speed wrapping and product handling machines is at best hit and miss, and at worst impossible.

The use of modern Digital Video technology means that fast moving events can be captured at 200 frames a second (a normal video camera takes just 25) and then be played back slowed to an eighth of real speed, or alternatively the individual ‘frozen action’ stills can be examined as shown in the example of the water drop.

This gives engineers the chance to see and understand fast actions and so identify any remedial action required.

This powerful tool has proven invaluable in devising Crafty Tech’s ingenious machines, and is now offered as a service to industry.

The suggested way of working is a site visit with the camera by an operator (also an experience engineer), who then works with on-site engineers and production staff to help diagnose problems. Often we have found that when shown the high-speed footage, site personnel are able to diagnose and change machine settings during the visit to achieve the improved performance.

However standard VHS copies of the footage showing the action slowed to 1/8 normal speed can also be supplied, and reports issued if machinery correction needs additional clarification.

Illustrated are some frames showing the effect of a single water droplet.

Taken from Crafty Tech’s JVC GR-DVL9800 high-speed video camera, running at 200 frames a second, using just ambient lighting.