In all industries, the possibility to automatically ensure quality and to prevent and detect fires is of vital importance. The solution can be a fixed infrared camera that monitors your process or asset continuously, detecting minute temperature differences in a 24/7 manner. This methodology has been implemented in a wide range of industrial automation applications all around the world.
FLIR thermal imagers offer affordable, fully integrated thermal imaging and measurement solutions for applications such as process development and optimization, industrial process monitoring, product verification, quality assurance, safety applications and more. An infrared camera can detect even small temperature differences in most operating conditions, including when there is smoke, fog or steam involved in the measurement situation.
Thermal Imaging for Automation
Many industries can take advantage of implementing an infrared camera that continuously monitors the production.
The Automotive Industry
In the automotive industry, there is a multitude of production processes that involves heat or heat patterns generation that need to be monitored and quality checked. Typical methods are welding, gluing with pre-heated glue, thermoforming, molding and die casting.
PCB Checking
Another application where infrared cameras can be used is PCB checking, where anomalies in the thermal patterns can be detected if the PCB is powered up after the final assembly. This type of testing is mostly important for industries dealing with high reliability electronics or power electronics where anomalies can indicate a case of a possible early failure.
FLIR A-Series IR Cameras
A fix mounted infrared camera can be installed almost anywhere to monitor your production process by detecting and measuring temperature differences. FLIR 325 is a compact, affordable IR camera fully controlled by a PC. It streams 320x240 pixels images up to 60 Hz and it is the first to follow standards as GigE Vision and GenICam. FLIR A325 comes with specially developed software and provide high speed live images in to the PC. Due to its compliance to standards, FLIR A325 is a Plug & Play device within 3rd parties Machine Vision software like NIs IMAQ VisionTM and the MVTecs HalconTM software.
Thermal Imaging for Safety Applications
Safety applications for infrared thermography exist in any industry where protection of life and assets is of importance and where an early warning of a potential critical condition is of utmost importance.
Typical industries are oil and gas production, power generation or distribution, steel manufacturing, or any industry which has some type of storage area where goods or material is kept that can self combust, e.g. storage of splint wood, batteries, waste, coal and more. All these applications have a fundamental need in common - to detect hot spots and then prevent that this turns in to a fire or a costly break down. Similarly, the integrity of critical vessels and infrastructure has to be monitored to avoid costly downtime and ensure on-site safety.
Thermal Monitoring With An Infrared Camera Prevents Downtime and Improves Work Safety
A fix mounted infrared camera can be installed discretely and almost anywhere to monitor your assets. It will safeguard your plant and assets and measure temperature differences to assess the criticality of the situation. This allows you to see problems before they become costly failures, preventing downtime and enhancing worker safety.
FLIR A320 Infrared Camera
The FLIR A320 infrared camera streams high sensitivity, 320x240 pixels images up to 8 Hz on its built in standard 100 Mb Ethernet interface. The IR camera works as an automatic control, monitoring and messaging system with connectivity options like Power over Ethernet, MPEG 4 video streaming and automatic file and e-mail messaging.