Identify a frame grabber model from its part numbers

A frame grabber that arrives inside a machine rarely wears the model number you find in the system documentation. The silkscreen on the board shows one number, the packing list shows another, and the camera maker's compatibility table sometimes shows a third. Before you can install a driver or open the right manual, you need to know which of those numbers names the card in your hand — and whether the board is the intended model at all. This guide walks the identification in bench order: read the numbering layers, count the connectors, match the interface and the revision letter, then pick the documentation. It applies to PCIe frame grabbers of every interface — GigE, 10GigE, CoaXPress, XoF and Camera Link — and to cards supplied inside robot cells and complete vision systems.

The decision: three numbers can name one board

A delivered machine rarely numbers a frame grabber the way its own documentation does. The silkscreen carries the board manufacturer's assembly number, often behind an "MFG" marking. The packing list and the machine builder's parts book carry their own catalog number for the same slot. When the camera maker supplies the board under its own label, a third number joins the list. None of these numbers is wrong; they are layers of one supply chain, and a single board can answer to all of them.

The decision therefore does not rest on matching strings. Everything the documentation, the driver and the cables key on is physical:

When those four features match the datasheet row of the model your documentation names, the board is that model whatever the label says: install it with the documentation that shipped with the system. When the connector count differs, it is a different board, and you stop before any driver goes in.

Layered numbering runs through automation spares of every kind — a PLC memory card order code that matches nothing on the card is the same puzzle in a different cabinet. The method below settles both.

Where the numbers live on the card

Pull the card once, photograph it, and you will not need to pull it again. Four markings do the work:

• The assembly or PCB number — the "MFG" or "P/N" line — identifies the bare board.
• The revision letter, Rev A, Rev B and so on, marks the hardware revision of that assembly.
• The date code, usually four digits as year and week, says when the board was built.
• The serial number is unique to the one board you hold; it belongs in the commissioning report, not in model identification.

Read the interface before the label

The fastest identifier on any frame grabber is its connector set: the interface dictates the connector, and the connector dictates the driver family. Count what is on the bracket and read the row.

The interface must also match the camera side, and the camera is always chosen first — filter area scan cameras by interface before you worry about any grabber label. On the Camera Link row, the ribbon connector names the card long before the silkscreen does; the MV-GC1102IOL is the Camera Link card in our grabber range, and its detection path has quirks of its own, covered in Camera Link frame grabber detection and integration.

Count the ports, match the row

Within one interface family, port count is what separates models, and it is printed on the bracket in plain sight. The catalog filters grabbers by interface and by port count for exactly this reason: that pair of filter values is the model identity for every practical purpose. The cards below make the point:

The MV-GE2002P is a GigE card with 2 ports and PoE; the MV-GT2104 carries 4 ports of copper 10GbE; the MV-GS1104F-DF is a 4-port XoF card with an SFP+ slot and 40G total bandwidth. Two connectors on a bracket will never be the four-channel model, whichever number is printed beside them. When the silkscreen string appears in no list you hold, count the connectors, read the connector family, and match that row in the datasheet of the model your documentation names.

A plain network card adds a fourth layer worth knowing. The LS-FGB-0004 is a PCIe x4 card with 4-port PoE gigabit Ethernet, and its controller silicon carries a number of its own. That is why a host's device manager can name a card after its controller while the packing list names it after the order code and the silkscreen after the assembly — three strings, one board.

On multi-port cards, record which camera lands on which port while the lid is off. The port-to-camera assignment is what the software actually sees, and assigning cameras to ports reliably in a multi-camera system is cheaper to do once than to debug twice.

The revision letter is part of the identity

The letter after the part number — RevA, RevB — is a hardware revision of one assembly, not a different model. The documentation covers the model; the revision changes what firmware the board expects. Two rules keep you out of trouble. Match the letter exactly when you order a spare: a Rev B board can arrive with a different firmware load than the Rev A it replaces, and older software does not always accept both. Treat the four-digit date code, year and week, as corroboration rather than identity — it tells the supplier which production window your board came from when a field fix needs dating.

The substitute case: equivalent, not identical

When a board moves toward end of life, suppliers ship an equivalent, and the equivalent carries a number that matches nothing you were given. Equivalent has a precise meaning here: same interface, same connector count, same connector family, same I/O bracket. Test all four against the datasheet of the original. Three matches out of four is not an equivalent — it is a different card that will cost you a day of re-cabling.

Substitutions are also where cables bite. An SDR-26 Camera Link cable will not mate an MDR-26 bracket, so a connector-family change invalidates your spares: the LS-CBL-0191 is a 5 m SDR-to-SDR Camera Link cable, useless the day a substitute card carries MDR. Grabber I/O wiring is bracket-specific in the same way — the LS-CBL-0224 is a DB9F-to-open I/O cable at 7 m, drawn for the bracket pinout it fits.

Worked example: a robot vision cell, two part numbers

The inputs, from a delivered cell: a palletizing machine arrives with its vision kit fitted. The frame grabber's silkscreen reads MFG 801-8142-01. The machine's packing list fills the same slot with 3HAC021510-001 RevA. The vision documentation lists neither string, and the question on the floor is whether the right board shipped at all.

The rule, in words: the silkscreen number is the board maker's internal assembly number; the packing-list number is the machine builder's catalog number; the board is what its features say it is.

The check, written out:

1. Count the camera connectors on the bracket: 2.
2. Read the connector family: it matches the two-channel digital frame grabber the cell's documentation describes for this slot.
3. Compare revision letters: packing list RevA, board Rev A — equal.
4. Score the identity: 2 counted connectors against 2 documented channels, 1 revision match, 0 feature mismatches.

The supplier's support desk later confirmed the mapping: the assembly number translates to the two-channel board that the catalog number also names, so both strings point at one card.

Decision: the right board shipped. Install it with the documentation that came with the cell, because that package was written against exactly this board-and-driver pair — it beats any manual fetched against a bare part number. The escalation threshold is any feature mismatch: a different connector count, a different connector family or a missing I/O bracket means the wrong board, and it goes back before a driver touches it.

Which documentation and driver to use

Use the documentation that shipped with the machine, not the manual a web search offers for the silkscreen string. The machine builder integrated the board and validated a driver against its own software release; that pairing is the supported one. Drivers bind to the interface and the board's hardware IDs, never to the label: an RJ45 card runs on the network stack, while CoaXPress and Camera Link boards take their vendor SDK.

Then let the software finish the identification. The acquisition tool enumerates the board and prints the model name in its device list; when that name agrees with the documentation, the question is closed from both ends. Two guides carry the software side from there: frame grabber SDK support: why one viewer works and another fails and frame grabber image acquisition for Camera Link and CoaXPress. If a second tool grabs the freshly identified board first, frame grabber in use: detect and handle access conflicts sorts the contention.

Older cells change the table row, not the method. BNC connectors on the bracket mean an analog capture card — a generation where card and software met through a digitizer driver; analog frame grabber selection for vision software covers choosing one, and our analog frame grabber integration guide covers wiring it into the toolchain. Whatever the interface, the whole host chain from slot to SDK has to agree, and laptop frame grabber compatibility: check the full interface chain is the pattern to copy.

When the card really is the wrong one

Feature mismatches are rare, but they happen: a warehouse picks the wrong revision, or a substitute ships without the I/O bracket the wiring was drawn for. When the connector count or family disagrees with the model your documentation names, stop — no driver turns a two-channel card into a four-channel cell. Photograph everything, quote both numbers, and send it back. If you are replacing rather than returning, the replacement is chosen after the camera: read camera frame grabber compatibility for resolution upgrades first, then filter the frame grabber finder by interface and ports.

Checklist: identify a frame grabber before you install it

1. Photograph first. Both sides of the card, the bracket and the packing list, before the machine closes up.
2. Count the camera connectors. The count is the model's channel count, and it beats every string on the label.
3. Name the connector family. RJ45, SFP+, BNC or DIN coax, SDR-26 or MDR-26 ribbon — the family fixes the interface and the driver.
4. Match the datasheet row. Interface plus port count plus connector family must equal the row of the model your documentation names.
5. Compare revision letters. Packing list against silkscreen; equal letters close the case, unequal letters go to the supplier.
6. Record the mapping. Both part numbers, the revision and the date code go into the commissioning report, and both numbers go onto the machine label.
7. Let the software confirm. The device list of the acquisition tool should name the same model the features matched.

When you are adding a card rather than identifying one, work from the camera outward and keep interface, ports and cabling in one list. If a board in a delivered cell does not match its paperwork, send both numbers and the photographs through the contact page and we will reconcile the mapping with you.