On 2010-05-17, Buerste wrote:
The thing that scares me the most in my reloading endeavors is a squib. To
visually check every case for the proper amount of powder is inconvenient
and slow.

[ ... ]

I can mount the camera on the ram so it's focus it constant or I can mount
it to the press if the camera will auto focus fast enough to be useful.
Ideally, the camera would have it's own LED lighting source.

Any recommendations on a camera or refinement of my idea?

A question occurs -- why must it be a USB camera? That would
then require a computer to display it.

I would use a stand-alone camera which puts out standard video,
and couple it to the monitor which is otherwise connected to the nearby
CNC lathe.

And -- such a camera normally does not have an auto-focus. You
just pre-focus it at the right distance and you are in business. (You
may want to make a spacer ring to allow it to focus close enough.

Imagine if the camera took a still at the bottom of the stroke and instantly
compared the image to a "standard" then sounded an alarm if the image was
too far from the standard and locked the press?

O.K. That would use the computer -- and require some rather
fancy image processing and image-recognition software, too. :-)

Again, a powder-check die
would do just that but I would not be able to use my bullet feeder or my
separate crimp die.

Understood.

How about a level sensor in the power measure to lock up the
press when the level in the hopper falls below a preset level?
Normally, you are not going to get improper dump of powder until the
supply gets too low to maintain pressure in the hopper.

Enjoy,
DoN.

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