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Falcon 4 Camera User's Manual
Software and Hardware Setup
Step 3: Establish Communication with the Camera
To establish communication with the camera:
1.
Power on the camera
2.
Connect to the frame grabber
3.
Connect to the camera
Power on the camera
Turn on the camera’s power supply. You may have to wait up to 60 seconds for the camera to
warm up and prepare itself for operation. The camera must boot fully before it will be recognized by
the GenCP compliant application; the CLHS LED will blink green, and camera LED will turn blue if
using a TeledyneDalsa frame grabber.
Initialize the frame grabber
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Start Sapera CamExpert (or an equivalent GenCP-compliant interface) by double-clicking
the desktop icon created during the software installation.
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CamExpert will search for Sapera devices installed on your system. In the Devices list area
on the left side of the GUI, the connected frame grabber will be shown.
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Select the frame grabber device by clicking on its name.
Note: The first time you set up the camera you will need to establish a communication link between
the camera and frame grabber. Instructions are available in Appendix
B: Camera, Frame Grabber
Communication
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Initialize communication with the camera
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Start a new Sapera CamExpert application (or equivalent Camera Link compliant interface)
by double-clicking the desktop icon created during the software installation.
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CamExpert will search for Sapera devices installed on your system. In the Devices list area
on the left side of the GUI, the connected Falcon4 camera will be shown.
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Select the Falcon4 camera device by clicking on the camera’s user-defined name. By default
the camera is identified by its serial number.
Check LED Status
At this point, if the camera is operating correctly the LEDs will flash yellow for approximately 10
seconds and then turn solid green if accquistion is on, or camera LED stays blue, CLHS LED blinks
green to wait for trigger
Software Interface
All the camera features can be controlled through the GUI. For example, under the Sensor Control
menu in the camera window you can control the frame rate and exposure times.
Note: the camera uses two instances of CamExpert. One window controls the camera and one
displays the output received from the frame grabber.
Also Note: If CamExpert is running during a camera reset operation, then you will have to reload
the GUI window used to control the camera once the camera is powered up again. Do this by either
(1) closing and reopening the CamExpert window, or (2) by going to “Image Viewer” in the
“Device” tab and selecting the camera again.
Preliminary
