Application of Visual Transducer in Cigarette Combustion Meter

The existing cigarette free combustion rate meter(CFCRM) is complex in structure,inconvenient in operation,low in efficiency and lacks the functions of data transmission and management.The meter was improved with a visual transducer of 1.3 million pixels,whose timing precision could reach 0.01 second,the lens size was 4 mm,LED was used as light source.The new meter allowed data communication through RJ-45 Ethernet,RS232.The visual transducer could automatically identify the specified test length(40 mm) of free burning,search the marks of starting point and finish point of the burning test with a border tool,and judge whether the tested cigarette was in burning.A comparative test was conducted between new and old CFCRMs with cigarettes of three brands,and the results showed that:the variation coefficient of average free burning rate obtained by CFCRM with visual transducer was smaller and the meter's calibration error was no more than 0.2 mm.The CFCRM with visual transducer featured stable performance,convenience of operation,high efficiency and could print,search,and save historical data.