Intermittent GigE Vision Stream Loss from NXB-SNS-341-004 Thermal Camera

Description

We have installed a new NexBot Robotics 341-004 Thermal Camera on our R-20 series robot for monitoring the temperature of plastic parts exiting an injection molding machine. The camera is powered by a stable 24VDC source and connected directly to the robot controller's secondary Ethernet port. After starting the vision job, the camera provides a clear thermal stream for approximately 5 to 10 minutes, then the feed freezes and the controller software reports a device timeout. The camera's status light remains green, and we can still ping its static IP address (192.168.2.50) from the controller's maintenance PC even after the stream has dropped. We have swapped Ethernet cables and verified the port on the controller with a laptop, which works fine. We suspect a network configuration or packet handling issue between the camera and the controller but have been unable to find a stable setting. This is impacting our ability to perform automated quality control checks, and we need to get the system running reliably.

Symptoms

• Thermal image stream drops after several minutes of operation.
• Vision controller software logs a 'Device Timeout' or 'Stream Disconnected' error.
• Camera remains responsive to network ping requests even after video loss.
• Power and link LEDs on the camera remain stable and green.

Resolution

The issue was traced to a network packet size mismatch between the NXB-SNS-341-004 camera and the R-20 robot controller's vision port. The camera was configured by default to use Jumbo Frames (MTU size of 9000) for maximum throughput, but the controller's port was set to a standard Ethernet frame size (MTU 1500). This caused the controller's network buffer to overflow, resulting in dropped packets and a stream timeout. By accessing the camera's web configuration interface and adjusting the packet size to 1500 bytes and introducing a small inter-packet delay, the stream was stabilized. The system has now been running for over 24 hours without interruption.

Resolution Steps

1. Connect a laptop to the same network as the camera and navigate to the camera's static IP address in a web browser to access the configuration utility.
2. Log in with default credentials and navigate to the 'Network Settings' or 'GigE Vision' tab.
3. Locate the 'Packet Size' or 'MTU' setting. Change the value from the default (e.g., 9000) to 1500 to match the standard Ethernet frame size of the robot controller.
4. Locate the 'Inter-Packet Delay' (GevSCPD) setting and increase it from 0 to a value of 20000 nanoseconds (20 microseconds) to regulate data flow.
5. Save the configuration settings to the camera's non-volatile memory.
6. Perform a full power cycle of the thermal camera.
7. Restart the vision program on the R-20 robot controller and monitor for stability.