EM interference with MS-3

[Omron Forums Support]

The MS-3 has a direct optical collection system, that means it looks everywhere the laser can be at any time plus a few areas outside of that just due to geometry.

What happened a couple years after the product release was the florescent light fixtures all started using H-Frequency. Suddenly, applications that worked just great would start to fail when the janitor came in over the weekend to swap out the light fixtures.

What the MS-3 needs is some shielding from room lighting if they are HF type. The frequency that these lights put out is exactly in the sweet spot of bandwidth for reading barcodes. So it can really be an issue under the right circumstances.

Always look into optical interference before electrical, and if there isn’t any obvious electrical interference source, then that makes it more likely HF lighting with a direct or one bounce path to the front of the MS-3 is the culprit.

A quick test can be as easy as placing a business card between the MS-3 and the light source.