Reliable detection in harsh environments with RAY26

The RAY26 is a sensor made to detect very small objects in his array.
To reach this, a transparent object detection algorithm is integrated in the device.
To achieve a reliable detection in combination with such small MDO's (minimum detectable objects) the customer must consider the following points.
 

1. Please choose a sensor that has the really needed MDO not smaller!
   If you choose a smaller MDO to add more safety the result will be a more sensitive device and a more stable environment (temperature/ vibrations/ reflector quality ...) is necessary.
    
2. As written in the datasheet at the "Ambient operating temperature" -> "12) Allowed temperature change after Teach +/- 20 K.", a higher temperature change after teaching can lead to unreliable detection or failure switching
   
    
3. Please choose a really suitable reflector, we have qualified a whole range of reflectors together with RAY26 during the development (PL80A, PL81F, PL81, PL72-2, PL100). The PL80A shows the highest homogeneity and the best performance over distance and temperature of all reflectors. Therefore, we recommend to use a PL80A reflector.
    
4. Correct adjustment of the sensor light spot exact in the middle of the reflector to avoid that the light spot hitting cut-off triples (not/ less functional/ worse) on the outer sidelines of the reflector
   
    

5. The sensor mounting has to be very stable to avoid sensor vibrations/ movements during machine running (mostly visible by moving light spot on the reflector).
   Please avoid shocks/ vibrations of sensor/ reflector that leads to movement of the light spot on the reflector, because reflectors are never homogeneous and different reflector triples/ areas will have different reflectivity quality which can lead to unreliable detection/ failure switching.
   A video of eg. an action cam recording the light spot on the reflector while the machine is running often shows what is really happening.
    

6. Please avoid that the detection object stops (partly) in the light beam of the sensor. In that case the threshold adaption of the sensor gets active to avoid failure switching due to contamination and changes the thresholds (sensor can't differ between contamination and partly light spot coverage). After that a different sensitivity (MDO) and failure switching can be possible.
    
7. Please check the contamination indication on the top of the sensor. What does the sensor show in failure case? 

 

For a higher robustness to temperature changes without the maximum ±20 K temperature change after teach limitation or more demanding application environments, we have developed the RAY26P-34162A30A00, #1111102 with a MDO of 10 mm.