Six-head ring module
The mechanical ring, the trigger box and the merge logic. Heads included, or supplied by you. This is the part nobody else sells separately.
Six-sided code reading, sold as a ring instead of a closed tunnel.
We supply the six-head ring, the trigger box and the integration. Cameras stay open to any brand you already run.
Pilot programme: three evaluation rings per quarter, sized against your parcel mix before you commit.
The gap
What the six-sided market does not sell you
Three things are missing from every offer we have seen. They are the reason this page exists.
01
A ring you can buy on its own
The two large vendors sell the group as a closed package: tunnel, edge PC, software licence. If you want the mechanical ring and the trigger distribution only, there is no part number.
02
A trigger box with hardware timing
Six exposures that agree within one microsecond need a hardware distributor. A software trigger lands at a hundred microseconds and more, which is already 0.2 mm of smear at 2 m/s.
03
A ring that leaves your camera brand open
The ring is the module. The heads can be ours, or the ones your maintenance team already stocks. We quote both, and we say which one is cheaper over five years.
Class comparison
Where the ring sits against the two closed options
Published figures only. The last column is our target for the first build, marked as target because it is not yet a shipped product.
| System | Heads | Belt speed | Smallest 2D code, six-sided | Sold as |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cognex Modular Vision Tunnel | 1 to 6 | < 3 m/s | 1.27 mm @ 500 mm | Closed package, no parts |
| SICK Lector85x station | 1 (12 MP) | 3.5 m/s | not published | Single unit, build the station |
| Hikrobot six-sided system | 5 + 1 | not published | not published | Selection list, you assemble |
| Fluffee ring | 5 + 1 | 3 m/s class | 1.27 mm @ 500 mm | target ring module, quote includes heads |
The 1.27 mm figure is not a limitation we invented. Any five or six sided layout loses code resolution at the sides, because the side camera looks along the box face at a shallow angle. If your parcels carry 10 mil codes on the sides, a six-sided ring is the wrong purchase and we will tell you so.
Six cameras are easy. Six cameras that agree on the same millimetre, on the same parcel, at the same microsecond, is the product.
Engineering note, ring control layer
The control layer is the part that gets skipped
A six-sided station fails in three ways, and none of them is the decoder. It fails because two side images were taken 300 µs apart, so the barcode moved between frames. It fails because the strobe was not bright enough to freeze motion at 2 m/s. It fails because six results arrived and nobody could tell which four belonged to the same parcel.
Our ring control layer does exactly three things: it distributes the encoder trigger to six heads, it fires the strobes with a fixed pulse width, and it merges the six results into one per parcel with de-duplication. That is a small FPGA, not a server.
Read the ring architecture or size a ring against your parcel mix.
Sizing
Three inputs, one honest answer
Most sizing arguments are about cameras. The real question is whether your code survives the geometry. Put your numbers in and read the verdict.
The model behind this is in Resources: published depth of field tables, the 1.27 mm six-sided floor, and the 50 to 100 microsecond strobe budget. It is a screening tool, not a quotation.
How a ring gets ordered
Four steps. The first two are free and take about a week together.
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Send the parcel mix, not a camera model
Code symbology, smallest module, belt speed, box size range, and what the line does today. A photo of the current station saves a call.
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We return a geometry sheet
Which faces can be read, at what code size, with which heads, and where the geometry fails. If it fails, the sheet says so and we stop.
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Evaluation ring, three per quarter
A ring with the trigger box, on your line, for four weeks. You keep the read rate logs. If it does not clear your rate, it goes back.
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Integration and handover
Mounting drawings, PLC interface, result format, and the maintenance sheet for your own team. We do not hold the line hostage with a licence key.
What we sell
Three lines. A ring can be bought alone, or as part of a working station.
Complete reading station
Ring, heads, cabinet, software and commissioning, quoted against your rate target. Same hardware, one invoice, one acceptance test.
Heads and components
Area and line scan heads, lenses, strobes and cabling from the brands your maintenance team already knows. Selection support included.
Send the requirement, get a geometry sheet
One form, ten fields. We reply with a sized configuration and a price band, or with the reason it will not work.