Compliance, safety, and intended use
16
Mako U Technical Manual V1.1.3
Ground loops
Unsuitable connection can lead to a short circuit caused by ground loops between
USB GND, GPIO GND, and environmental setup GND. This short circuit can lead to
malfunctions or destroy camera and connected devices. Mount the camera
electrically isolated to avoid ground loops.
Uncritical setup
Ground loops are a general risk of setups with USB cameras.
An environmental setup is uncritical with a Mako U camera if no devices powered
by PELV (Protective extra low voltage) are involved.
Graphics legend
Gray line
Cable connection
Blue line
PE ground
In the example above, only the PC is PELV-powered. Therefore, no ground loop is
possible.
The following section is about ground loops between PELV-powered devices and
how to avoid them.
Figure 1: No ground loop in an environmental setup
without
PELV-powering
..
...
...
PLC
PC
Power cable
USB cable
PE 1
PE 2
GPIO cable
I/O cables
Camera
Machinery
non-PELV powered
PELV powered