NI-IMAQ Compatibility with Older Camera Link Frame Grabbers

Issue Details

I am writing code using the NI-IMAQ driver to acquire from a PCIe-1437 frame grabber. Will that same code also work with older frame grabbers, such as the PCI-1426, PCIe-1430, or PCIe-1433?

Solution

The same NI-IMAQ driver can be generally used for any frame grabbers that are supported by that version of NI-IMAQ. For example, NI-IMAQ 19.0 (included in the Vision Acquisition Software 19.0 installer) is compatible with the following Camera Link frame grabbers:

• PCIe-1437
• PCIe-1433
• PXIe-1435
• PCIe-1430
• PCIe-1429
• PCIe-1427
• PCI-1428
• PCI-1426

The same basic acquisition code should work for each of these frame grabbers, as long as you are not using functionality specific to a certain frame grabber (see Additional Information below).

Newer versions of the NI-IMAQ driver may drop support for older frame grabbers. Refer to the Readme file of the newer IMAQ version to ensure that it is still compatible with your device before upgrading.

Additional Information

Newer frame grabbers will sometimes include new features or slightly different functionality than older frame grabbers. If you implement some of this functionality, you will need to ensure it is compatible with the different frame grabbers you want to use. Here are some examples of features that you may want to pay attention to:

• Different frame grabbers support different Camera Link tap geometries (configurations).
• Trigger functionality may be different on older frame grabbers.
• Some frame grabbers may or may not support Power Over Camera Link (PoCL).
• Onboard digital I/O may be different.

This is not a comprehensive list of differences between these frame grabbers. Refer to the specifications of user manual of the individual frame grabbers for more information.