In a message dated 9/9/98 10:33:36 AM Pacific Daylight Time, vbk@scm-
metals.com writes:

<< I'm looking for information on digital cameras for imaging boards and
 components. Requirements are, resolution for fine pitch leads and joints,
 color at focus distance < 1 inch and portability. Respond on or off line.
 Thank-you  in advance for your response.
 Vincent B. Kinol                                 [log in to unmask]
 Applications Engineer                   OMG Americas
 Phone 919-544-8090  ext 298             FAX 919-544-7996 >>

Hi Vincent!

      I've looked at digital cameras to use on the manufacturing floor, and I
finally settled on a Olympus DL300 (that was the model #  2-years ago, I'm not
sure what it is now..). It has 1024 X 768 resolution and does great as far as
getting good images to paste into MPI's (manufacturing process instructions),
but getting down and trying to image a solder joint,
...it won't do that. You'll need a ton-o-pixels for that!

      I don't know how much money you want to spend, but I hope you have a
lot...you're talking about high end, big buck cameras to do something like
that. For the money you'll have to pay to get a decent image doing what you
described, you might be better off looking at a microscope system with a CCD
camera and one of those Sony printers attached to it. I used to work with one
of those units at a past job, and they take beautifully clear pictures at high
magnification.

      One other thing about using digital cameras with the kind of resolution
that you want or need to get good pictures at high magnification, more than
likely the image you wind-up with won't fit on a floppy...that is unless you
have one of those zip disks that hold a 120MB. Even with the Olympus I have, I
can wind-up with some hefty sized files...they can easily be 1MB+

      Something I've done when I want some magnified images is to use my
solder paste printer...yep, the ol' solder paste printer. I have a MPM SPM-AV,
and it has the two fiducial cameras on it. I went down to Fry's and picked-me
up a "Snappy" for image capture, got me about 50' of coax cable so's I can
hook the whole mess up to my 'pooter, and now I've got me a digital image
magnification system for less than $150 ('course I didn't count the cost of
the MPM printer!). It takes good pictures too! If I could attach one to this
email I'd show you...but Jack or Hugo might beat me up...(GRIN)

-Steve Gregory-

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