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Optics for renewable energy

Lenses for applications in the
renewable energy sector


Lenses play an important role in the production and monitoring of renewable energy. By analyzing images and data with high-quality optics and image processing technologies, the performance and efficiency of solar cells, wind turbines and other renewable energy sources can be improved. Our lenses help optimize the efficiency and performance of renewable energy and reduce environmental impact.

 
Battery inspection

battery  inspection
 
 

 

Lenses and vision technologies enable automated battery quality inspection, which can reduce production time and improve battery quality.

 

 
Solar cell inspection

Solar cell inspection
 
 

 

The quality assurance of solar cells can be improved by lenses and machine vision to reduce production costs and extend the life of solar cells.

 

 
Wind energy

WIND ENERGY
 
 

 

3D measurement of rotors during production helps improve wind turbine quality and durability while reducing costs.


 

 

Benefits of Schneider-Kreuznach

Tradition meets Innovation: over 110 years of Optical Manufacturing Experience

Ever since the foundation in 1913 our staff have been perfecting our knowledge and technologies to bring you the best products in optics. Our manufacturing facilities in Bad Kreuznach, Germany, guarantee outstanding quality – Made in Germany. We continuously invest in our state-of-the-art machinery and in the education and training of our staff. Select your perfect lens from our large portfolio. 

If you need a customized solution, we are your partner from the kick-off to the Project completion. Our extensive experience and in-depth knowledge of a wide range of applications enables us to provide you with solutions that are perfectly tailored to your needs. As a family owned company, we are passionate and committed to our customers and their success. You can expect long-term relationships based on trust and shared goals with us.

Custom Lenses for maximum flexibility

All Schneider-Kreuznach industrial lenses are designed for total flexibility and adaptability. Not only are they available in a range of standard designs, but they can also be completely customized to meet your needs. The possibilities are virtually unlimited. Whether you want to adjust working distances, require specific housing dimensions, or are looking for custom coatings for specific wavelengths, we can make it happen. We understand that every project is unique and we will do our best to provide you with the perfect solution. 

Our focus on quality and innovation is evident in every industrial lens we modify. By working closely with our customers, we ensure that we can make your requirements a reality. Discover the possibilities of our custom industrial lenses and rely on our years of experience and expertise in the optical industry. Here are just a few examples of the modifications that can be made to our industrial lenses:  

  • Ruggedized & stabilized lenses for extreme conditions
  • Fixed aperture lenses for consistent and reliable images 
  • Optimized imaging performance for specific working distances
  • Custom coatings for specific wavelengths 
  • Size and weight adjustments for optimal integration into your system 
  • Accessories such as beam splitters and integrated optical filters

Contact us, to find the right solution for you.

A worthwhile investment: increasing efficiency through new lens development

Any Schneider-Kreuznach standard lens can be modified to meet your needs. However, there are some applications that require new, customized lenses. Our product development department can develop custom lenses for your needs. This can even result in cost savings by tailoring the lens to your needs, thus avoiding unnecessary complexity.

Our custom lenses offer user-friendly integration into existing systems. The adaptability of our product designs allows engineers to seamlessly integrate lenses. We are a trusted partner because of our commitment to research and development and our decades of experience in the optical industry. With our custom lenses, we help our customers overcome challenges, open up new possibilities and take their technical applications to the next level.

Highest quality and reliability: Our lenses put to the test

Quality and reliability are top priorities at Schneider-Kreuznach. Our lenses undergo rigorous quality control to ensure maximum reliability. Before a lens leaves our factory, it is carefully inspected and tested. This ensures that it meets our high quality standards. We use only high quality glass from reputable manufacturers to achieve very low manufacturing tolerances. As a result, our filters are of consistently high quality. Their use allows you to accurately reproduce results, as the lenses will perform nearly identically even after years of use.

Our industrial lenses are rigorously tested to DIN and ISO standards to ensure they meet stringent environmental requirements. These include extreme temperature testing from -25°C to +70°C, humidity testing from 80% to 95% relative humidity, and shock testing at 50 g / 11 ms and sinusoidal vibration testing to ensure robustness, shock and vibration resistance. Of course, we can also design and manufacture lenses to meet even more demanding requirements. Contact us for more information.

Stability for extreme conditions: ruggedized and stabilized lenses

Our industrial lenses are tough and durable by design. But we offer even more: Ruggedized and stabilized lenses. These lenses are exceptional. They offer superior performance and durability. Even in the harshest conditions, you can count on our lenses to deliver reliable, accurate results.

Stabilized Lenses
Stabilized lenses are specifically designed for precise measurement applications such as 3D measurement and complex triangulation systems to avoid image shift.  With their secure mechanical design, these lenses ensure a stable image position and minimize image shift during movement. They provide highly accurate and reliable results without having to constantly re-calibrate. Stabilized lenses are ideal for robotic applications, especially robot vision.

Ruggedized Lenses
Our ruggedized lenses are ideal for harsh environments. Ruggedized C-mount lenses resist shock and vibration. With shock resistance up to 100g and robust mechanics and optics, they offer exceptional durability in extreme conditions such as rocket launches into space.

Precision down to the last detail: Our high vertical integration

We are proud of our technical expertise, which we consistently apply to the production of our lenses and optical filters through our high level of vertical integration at our Bad Kreuznach site. Each of the Schneider-Kreuznach products is manufactured with the utmost care and precision to provide you with the best possible performance and reliability.

Optics
We demand the highest standards of materials and manufacturing processes to ensure excellent image quality, starting with the production of the optics. Our standards go beyond the production of individual components. We master the entire production process from raw glass to finished lenses and are able to process all common types of glass. Our special coating technologies give the optics or lenses the desired optical properties.

Mechanics
We do mechanical manufacturing in-house. We use the latest technologies and machinery to develop robust and durable filters. With our high-end 5-axis CNC milling machines, we have world-class machining capabilities that give us exceptional precision and flexibility. These powerful milling machines allow us to realize complex geometries and sophisticated contours in the mechanical components of our lens houses while maintaining high reproducibility. Electroplating is performed in-house under strict environmental conditions, allowing us to customize the surface coatings of our products to meet the specific requirements of our customers.

Assembly
Our lenses are assembled in dedicated clean rooms that provide a clean and controlled environment and ensure they are free of contaminants. Our qualified staff with many years of experience and expertise perform precise adjustments and calibrate the optics to the highest quality with the lowest tolerances.

Testing and Quality Assurance
Our test technology and quality assurance reflect our high quality standards. We use state-of-the-art technologies such as interferometers and 3D coordinate measurement technology to test the lenses we manufacture to ensure they meet the highest standards. Our ISO 9001 certified processes, metrology rooms and procedures ensure consistent and reliable production to meet our customers' high expectations.

Different needs, individual solutions: Let us advise you

Our sales and engineering professionals provide customers with a high level of expertise and responsiveness. We understand that the needs of our industrial customers can be diverse and complex. Whether it's technical specifications, the exact application environment, special customizations, or other unique requirements, we take the time to understand each customer's unique needs and provide customized solutions. Our advice ranges from selecting the right lens to assisting with integration into existing systems. You can count on our experts to provide the best support and find the perfect solution.

Our in-depth application knowledge and proven optical expertise enable us to provide customized solutions that combine mechanical robustness, reliability and the highest imaging accuracy. This is the result of our decades of experience with extremely tight tolerances. We even go so far as to design and build our own manufacturing and metrology systems if there is no equipment available on the market that is accurate enough. Our customers value us not only for our technical expertise, but also for the dedicated and customer-focused advice we provide. We listen. We answer questions and make recommendations. It is important to us that our customers have all the information they need so that they can make the right decisions and achieve the best possible results.

Contact us - we will be happy to advise you.

All products at your glance - our digital product brochure (PDF)

Discover our wide range of high quality lenses, optical filters and accessories in our interactive eBrochure. Find the detailed compilation of all standard products currently available from Schneider-Kreuznach. Our product brochure gives you a comprehensive overview of our entire product range, including all technical information. Whether you are looking for specific products or want to compare different options, our eBrochure has it all in one place. Click on the link below to download our product brochure.

Produktuebersicht_2022.jpg

Download brochure (PDF)

Lenses for battery inspection


 

Battery inspection

Lens series suitable for battery inspection

Battery Structure Inspection
Final inspection of the battery's internal structure is another important application of vision technology. This involves checking the arrangement of cells, seals and electrical leads using lenses with optimized magnification. The vision software can automatically detect defects in the battery's internal structure, such as leaks or loose wires.

Inspection systems using our high-contrast lenses provide automatic and fast real-time battery quality inspection at full line speed, reducing production time and improving battery quality and performance.

Inspection of lithium-ion battery
separator film

Lenses and related vision technology play an important role in battery inspection. During the electrode manufacturing and assembly process, line scan cameras and high contrast lenses are used to inspect the dimensions, defects, and alignment of battery components.

A key component of the Li-ion battery is the separator film. It separates the anode and cathode and enables the safe and functional exchange of lithium ions. After extrusion, stretching and coating, the separator film must be carefully inspected to ensure 100% product quality and safety. 

Typical defects detected:
Holes, coating defects, metal particles, slit defects, thin spots, stains, water droplets, scratches, repeat defects.

Battery inspection factory

Battery inspection factory

Why Pyrite lenses are the right choice
for the inspection of batteries


The PYRITE lens series is ideal for battery inspection. In particular, the 60 mm and 80 mm lenses offer a large image circle that allows the use of cameras with large sensors and high resolution. The lenses provide consistent imaging performance across the entire field of view. This ensures high reliability and reproducibility of inspection results over the entire area of the inspected object.

In addition to a good price/performance ratio, the lenses are characterized by high sharpness and contrast performance. This makes it easier for the image processing software to detect defects during battery inspection. The distortion of the lenses is low, well below 0.5 %. Correction of the image geometry by the software is therefore usually not necessary. This increases the inspection speed of the system. In addition, the images can be more easily stitched by the software.

The lens is suitable for cameras with a pixel size of 5µ from the initial aperture. This results in better light efficiency of the inspection system and shorter inspection times.

Lens benefits at a glance:

  • 60 mm and 80 mm focal lengths with large image circle for cameras with large sensors and high resolution
  • Uniform imaging performance over the entire field of view
  • Good price/performance ratio with high sharpness and contrast
  • Distortion less than 0.5%, no software corrections required
  • Compatible with 5µ pixel cameras already from the initial aperture

Lenses for solar cell inspection


 

Solar cell inspection

Lens series suitable for solar cell inspection

One of the most important applications of machine vision technology in solar cell manufacturing is the inspection of the dimensions and optical and electrical properties of solar cells using lenses. This includes checking the thickness, width, length and surface condition of the solar cells. A vision camera with the appropriate lens can automatically detect whether the solar cell meets the required specifications and generate error messages if it does not.

Another application is the inspection of the electrical conductivity of solar cells. This includes inspection of contacts, wires, and electrical connections. Machine vision software can automatically detect whether the electrical conductivity of solar cells is compromised by loose contacts or poor connections, for example. This requires lenses that are optimized for a specific magnification.

Why PYRITE Lenses are suitable for
the Inspection of solar cells


Discover the versatility of PYRITE lenses for battery and solar cell inspection. With the 60 mm and 80 mm versions, this lens series offers outstanding performance in the VIS and NIR range, which is particularly interesting for the inspection of solar cells.

Especially in the NIR range, PYRITE lenses are able to detect defects in solar cells during production that are not visible in other spectral ranges. This enables precise defect detection and opens up new possibilities for quality control of solar cells.

They are suitable for both line scan cameras and cameras with large, high-resolution sensors of up to 65 megapixels. They enable inspection using both line scan and one-shot inspection methods, ensuring flexible and efficient inspection of solar cells.

In addition to an attractive price/performance ratio, the lenses feature high sharpness and contrast. This makes it much easier for image processing software to detect defects during solar cell inspection. The distortion of the lenses is well below 0.5 %, so image geometry correction by the software is usually not required. These features allow for increased inspection speed of the system as well as smooth image stitching by the software.

In addition, the lens is suitable for cameras with a pixel size of 5µ from the initial aperture. This improves the light efficiency of the inspection system and reduces inspection time and costs.

Lens benefits at a glance:

  • NIR strengths: Detects damage not visible in other spectral regions.
  • High sensor compatibility: Ideal for line scan cameras and cameras with large, high-resolution sensors up to 65 megapixels.
  • Flexible inspection: Enables both line scan and one-shot inspections for flexible and efficient solar cell inspection.

Lenses for the 3D measurement of rotor blades


 

Wind energy

Lens series and optical filters suitable for 3D measurement of rotors for wind turbines

The use of special lenses for 3D measurement not only allows precise measurement of rotor blade shape and size, but also covers important aspects such as strain and deformation measurements. These features are critical for a full understanding of structural integrity in rotor blade manufacturing. This is the only way to ensure that rotor blades have the desired aerodynamic properties, are not damaged, and that wind turbines can operate properly. 

Another application for the lenses is surface inspection of rotor blades. This is necessary to ensure that the surface is free of cracks and other damage. 3D measurement with special lenses helps to improve the quality of wind turbines and extend the life of the rotors. This can reduce the production costs of wind turbines, contributing to sustainable energy production in the long term.

High resolution sensors up to 2.5µm: TOURMALINE lenses for detailed rotor blade inspections


The TOURMALINE lens series is an excellent choice for rotor blade inspection because the optical design, which has been specially developed for 3D metrology, guarantees excellent imaging results for rotor blade inspection. 

The high optical imaging performance makes the TOURMALINE lens particularly suitable for use with cameras with high-resolution sensors of up to 2.5 µm pixel size. This enables extremely precise and detailed imaging of the rotor blades, which is crucial for detecting the smallest damage or irregularities.

Another advantage of the TOURMALINE lens is its high image stability. This stability eliminates the need to recalibrate the system, simplifying and speeding up the inspection process. The Schneider-Kreuznach focus clamp also provides long-term stability, ensuring the reliability of the lens over long inspection periods.

Another advantage of the TOURMALINE lens is its flexibility. Upon request, modifications in weight and size can be made to meet the individual requirements of your inspection system.

Lens benefits at a glance:

  • Optical design specifically developed for 3D metrology
  • High optical imaging performance for high resolution sensors down to 2.5 µm pixel size 
  • High image stability, no recalibration necessary
  • Flexibility due to possible modifications in weight and size, adapted to the individual requirements of the inspection system

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