Control in the Corners

RapidView IBAK rolls out POLARIS lateral inspection camera at 2013 Expo.
Control in the Corners
David Daake, left, RapidView IBAK’s Midwest U.S. and Central Canada sales manager, explains the features of the POLARIS lateral camera to a prospective buyer.

Pan-and-tilt inspection cameras are a staple for pipe inspections in the sanitary, storm and water system industry. However, typical systems are sometimes limited when inspecting bends and junctions in the pipeline. To combat that issue, RapidView IBAK rolled out their new POLARIS lateral camera at the 2013 Pumper & Cleaner Environmental Expo International in Indianapolis, Ind.

Designed for inspecting smaller-diameter pipes, this push camera is mounted on a pivoting arm that allows the operator to choose the direction when traversing around bends and junctions which were previously difficult to inspect.

“We wanted to design a lateral navigating camera system that had a completely unobstructed view,” says Matt Sutton, RapidView IBAK’s vice president of sales and marketing. “Previous lateral cameras, including ours, had a ‘steering stick’ that was visible in the video picture that prevented the camera system from providing a full 180-degree pan range. The removal of this stick allows users to have a full pan-and-tilt range while still allowing the ability to navigate bends or joints in the pipeline.”

The company publicly displayed the camera system for the first time at the 2013 Expo, and Sutton says they were pleased with the response from the crowd. “We received considerable interest. No one had seen anything like it, and it provides operators with an enhanced view and navigating capabilities,” he says. “We took orders at the show and first deliveries went out in the early summer.”

An onboard telemetry system tracks the camera’s viewing angle and rotation to determine the distance between two points on the pipe wall. This allows users to measure pipe defects and the diameter of objects without bulky attachments or analysis programs. “The flexibility gained from the full pan range allowed us to install that onboard laser measurement device which determines those defects and deformations inside the pipeline,” Sutton says.

Other features include upright picture control, a wide-angle view (120 degrees), low light sensitivity that allows it to inspect larger pipelines, an FOV of +/- 150 degrees, and bright LED lighting. It is designed for utilization in push applications, and can be laterally launched from the company’s LISY launch system.

“The POLARIS is the evolution of our ORION-L camera, our first lateral navigating camera on the market,” says Sutton. “We believe it will be embraced by our lateral launch users primarily, but it also works exceedingly well for industrial push applications where other cameras may not be able to traverse the pipe.”

Sutton believes the Expo was the marquee event to roll out the new technology. “We consider this design revolutionary, and many we talked to at the Expo agreed,” he says. “This design takes a traditional pan-and-tilt camera and adds versatility that no one has seen before. We’ll absolutely be back with it at next year’s Expo.” 800/656-4225; www.rapidview.com.



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