Re: Diagnosing and overcoming GigE camera freezes

["Henrique F. Simoes via Tech-talk" <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>]

Hi, Mark S.

I'm answering inline, and CC'ing tech-talk to have your answer shared and
archived as well.

On Thursday, May 22, 2025 5:47 PM, Engbretson, Mark S. <engbretson at anl.gov> wrote:
> A lot of GigE camera start blinking their error lights are going offline when
> they  get even slightly out of their operational range of 50 C Degrees or so.

Unfortunately, Basler cameras we use (mostly acA1300-75gm) don't have
operational status LEDs. We often see them close to 48°C when they are simply
online. We are currently in a shutdown, but there are 40 cameras online in the
beamlines right now. 30 of them are below 50°C (mean 48°C, std dev 1°C). The
remaining ones are 57 +/- 5 °C.

> I know a few that stop working 2 - 3 degrees above that range. Others - people
> say (and the stat pv's confirm ) can be run up to 80 C.

Interesting. When I started working with these cameras, I saw that it's
documented that their temperature can fall into three states:  "ok",
"critical", and "over temperature" [5]. For the model I mentioned above, it is
72°C to reach critical temperature (only a warning), and 78°C for over
temperature, when the camera is expected to stop streaming. From that, I first
understood to be fine to work on the 50°C--70°C range. Nowadays, Eduardo Coelho
and I aren't convinced that it doesn't affect operation in the long run.

> I know that our IT people's first question is "Is its temp outside of the spec
> sheet operational range? And if so, have you tried putting a fan of large heat
> sink on it." A lot of time , a better passive cooling mount helps.

We currently don't use heat sinks. That's something Eduardo has told me before
we should consider. Some camera mounts in our photon beam screens don't offer
much contact area, which doesn't help with cooling. Some specific ones have a
larger metal structure where they are attached. We want to study which cameras
freeze more often than others, and check if this turns out to be related to
those different cooling aspects.

> I.e., people move these things from place to place  and ones that worked before
> they fail since the ambient  cooling is different by a very small amount and
> that is enough to run certain models over the edge.  Flir ones  more than
> Basler / Allied Signal . . .

Thanks a lot for the input. We'll take small drifts in temperature into account
when analyzing our case in more depth.

[5] https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://docs.baslerweb.com/temperature-state*how-it-works__;Iw!!G_uCfscf7eWS!fi-cIUohOuX2FhfkRi0tfS1Vl3F_8U-7rQeDN2FBVe5SqC3uBTHu2I1pBr10TJ7sxsDgUe9iwGBtwgnRQITBEwwF1sAnSJ-9$ 
[6] https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://docs.baslerweb.com/aca1300-75gm*environmental-requirements__;Iw!!G_uCfscf7eWS!fi-cIUohOuX2FhfkRi0tfS1Vl3F_8U-7rQeDN2FBVe5SqC3uBTHu2I1pBr10TJ7sxsDgUe9iwGBtwgnRQITBEwwF1lSVu3Nc$ 

--
Henrique F. Simões
Control Software Group (SwC)
Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS)
Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM)

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