Knowledge of appearance inspection: Camera: GigE or USB 3.0

We will introduce how to choose an interface according to its purpose.

One of the common concerns when selecting a camera is the interface. In recent years, most manufacturers of industrial cameras have released both GigE and USB3.0 cameras. This is because each of the two interfaces has its own advantages and disadvantages. In this article, I would like to discuss how to choose the appropriate interface based on your application. ■ Price Comparison The differences between the two are clearly defined in the specifications, so I will extract some of that information. By looking at the table below, you may clarify which camera you should choose for your current application. (Note: Manufacturers offer cables up to 5m or 8m, but there may be cases where operation becomes unstable.) ■ Power Supply for GigE Cameras When connecting to a PC via GigE, you cannot power the camera directly from the PC even if you connect the PC and camera with a LAN cable. Therefore, you need to either power the camera directly or use a separate PoE injector or PoE hub between the PC and the camera to supply power to the camera. (Note: PoE hub capable of powering 4 cameras (BS-GU2005P))

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■Criteria for Selection - When the cable length between the PC and the camera exceeds 3m, including routing → GigE - When the cable length between the PC and the camera is within 3m and easy connection is desired → USB3.0 I believe this can be said. During the USB2.0 era, I felt that connections were easily affected by noise and were difficult to stabilize, but since the introduction of the USB3.0 Vision standard, I feel that the noise resistance of the USB interface has improved. (Figure 1: Left: GigE connector (top) acA4600-7gc, Right: USB3.0 connector (bottom) acA2500-60uc) Until now, we have been using GigE cameras for internal verification work, but recently we have started to use USB3.0 cameras more often due to their convenience. It’s not that one is better than the other; rather, the choice of camera will depend on how you want to use it (especially regarding cable routing, etc.). *For more details, please refer to the related links or feel free to contact us.