Camera Link camera and frame grabber compatibility: what must match

Your Camera Link camera is missing from the frame grabber's recommended-camera list and the build is on hold. In most cases the fix is paperwork, not hardware: Camera Link compatibility comes down to three checks — the camera's configuration level (Base, Medium or Full), the grabber's camera configuration file, and bandwidth arithmetic you can do on paper. This guide is for anyone pairing a Camera Link industrial camera with a Camera Link frame grabber card. You will finish able to check a pairing in minutes, size a camera against a Base link with real numbers, and tell a missing camera file apart from a pairing that physically cannot work.

What a Camera Link link actually carries

Camera Link carries everything over LVDS pairs: pixel data with its framing signals (frame valid, line valid, data valid, pixel clock), a serial channel for camera control, and four real-time lines (CC1 to CC4) for triggering and exposure. The standard defines the complete interface — data transfer, camera timing, serial communications and real-time signalling — so every compliant camera speaks the same electrical language. A Camera Link frame grabber decodes those signals and hands finished images to a vision computer over the PCIe bus. The frame grabber finder filters current cards by interface and port count.

Base, Medium and Full: the three configuration levels

Base cameras send up to 24 bits per pixel clock over one cable. Medium doubles that over two cables, Full triples it over three, and the 80-bit Extended mode of Camera Link 2.0 widens three cables to 80 bits. Capacity follows directly from bits times clock:

Early cards clock at 66 MHz; later revisions raise the pixel clock to 85 MHz. Check which your card supports before trusting the right-hand column, then let the two formulas do the deciding.

The camera configuration file is the real compatibility test

A supported-camera list is a library of camera files wearing a list's clothes. Each file tells the grabber how to reassemble the camera's taps, decode its pixel format, and read its timing and signal polarity. If a file exists for your camera model, the pair works — the list records which files have been written, not which cameras the hardware can handle.

No file for your camera? Load the generic file matching its tap configuration and pixel format, then drive exposure, gain and trigger registers over the serial port. The camera-file bit-stream fix shows what a wrong file looks like on screen, and frame grabber detection and integration walks the bring-up from installed card to first frame. When a camera has no file anywhere, send the grabber maker the manual pages listing taps, pixel format and pixel clock: files are added on request.

Worked example: a 1600 × 1200 mono8 camera at 60 fps on Base

Inputs, read straight from a camera manual for this example camera: 1600 × 1200 pixels, mono8 output (1 byte per pixel), 60 frames per second, single tap. The limit is the Base capacity from the table above: 198 MB/s at 66 MHz, 255 MB/s at 85 MHz.

• 1600 × 1200 = 1,920,000 pixels per frame
• 1,920,000 px × 1 byte = 1.92 MB per frame
• 1.92 MB × 60 fps = 115.2 MB/s of pixel data
• 115.2 MB/s × 8 ÷ 24 bits per clock = 38.4 MHz pixel clock required

Decision: 115.2 MB/s clears the 198 MB/s limit of even a 66 MHz Base link, with 82.8 MB/s spare — 42% headroom — and the 38.4 MHz clock sits below both clock caps. This camera runs on any Camera Link frame grabber at Base over one cable, provided the camera file or generic file matches its single-tap mono8 output. Carry the thresholds with you: cameras up to 198 MB/s run everywhere, 198 to 255 MB/s need an 85 MHz-capable card, 255 to 510 MB/s push you to Medium and two cables, and beyond that to Full.

Taps and pixel formats: what the file has to describe

Mono8 from a single tap is the simplest case, and every grabber's generic file covers it. Multi-tap cameras split a frame across taps the file must reassemble in the right order; packed formats such as mono10 packed or RGB change the bytes-per-pixel figure in the formulas above. A tap or format mismatch shows up as bit-stream errors, torn or doubled frames — symptoms worth ruling out in order, starting with cable wiring checks when no image appears. When you upgrade a camera on an existing card, pairing a higher-resolution camera with an existing frame grabber covers exactly that swap. The area scan cameras category's interface filter narrows the field to Camera Link models when you are specifying the camera side.

Serial control and the CC lines

The serial channel is a UART riding the same cable, and the grabber's SDK exposes read and write to any register the camera firmware defines. Use it for settings no camera file covers: camera lookup table control through the frame grabber serial port shows the pattern end to end, as does this frame grabber serial-port setup walkthrough. CC1 to CC4 give frame triggering and exposure control without extra wiring; remember an exposure change takes effect from the next frame.

Cables, connectors and power

Base runs over one cable, and the standard's maximum cable length is 7 m — at the full 85 MHz clock, treat it as the limit. Connectors come in MDR-26 and SDR-26 families (SHR on high-density cards), and the cable must match both ends. If the camera expects Power over Camera Link, the grabber must be PoCL-capable or the camera needs its own power input. Intermittent frame timeouts near drives and contactors usually trace to cable routing; the frame-timeout noise checklist is the fastest triage.

Check a pairing in five minutes

1. Read four values from the camera manual: configuration level, tap configuration, pixel format, pixel clock.
2. Search the grabber's camera-file library for the exact model; read any limitations the file lists.
3. Run the bandwidth arithmetic: camera MB/s against the card's configuration capacity and clock.
4. Confirm cable count, connector family and PoCL power.
5. Bench-test with the generic tap file before requesting a dedicated camera file.

If the checks pass and you are building a new single-camera Camera Link station, the card below is the starting point:

When the recommended list is wrong — and when to move on

A camera absent from the supported list is a file request, not a rejection: send the manual pages and ask the grabber maker. Move away from Camera Link when the camera rate outgrows Full, the cable needs more than 7 m, or the design is new and multi-camera — CoaXPress, 10GigE and USB3 carry more bandwidth per cable and need no camera files. If the rebuild goes beyond Camera Link, the interface cards below carry those interfaces:

Line scan still suits Camera Link well for its timing discipline; Camera Link frame grabbers for line scan covers that pairing.

Next step: pull the camera manual's four values, run the arithmetic once, then search the camera-file library — that settles most pairings before any hardware is ordered. The configurator starts a frame grabber pick at the interface step, and the camera finder filters cameras when you are specifying the camera first. For a stubborn bench failure, frame grabber image acquisition for Camera Link and CoaXPress traces the whole acquisition chain.