Its 2 a.m. Do You Know Where Your Vision System Is

One of the biggest challenges a manufacturing company faces is making sure that their vision system is a seamless part of the bigger factory infrastructure. If a factory’s communication platform is not built and configured properly, getting your equipment and devices to recognize your vision system consistently becomes a chronic problem and can take a significant amount of specialized work to fix. While this work is going on, your line is not manufacturing products, costing you money and time.

Solid Ethernet based protocols are the key to helping you avoid these chronic problems. Ultimately, this functionality is the true value of Ethernet communications and frankly, where most companies drop the ball. You can ensure your vision system stays connected and functions the way it should if you are achieving seamless connectivity with your Ethernet communications platform. Seamless connectivity gives you the ability to maintain continuous communication with your factory network, your remote PC, and your PLC or HMI.

Many machine vision companies say they have seamless connectivity through Ethernet communications, but the buyer must put the company through its paces to avoid surprises down the line. Cognex offers Cognex Connect, the most comprehensive suite of communications capabilities ever available in a vision system. Cognex Connect provides support for the most commonly used open-standard Industrial Ethernet and Fieldbus communications protocols for trouble-free connection to PLCs and a wide range of automation devices from Mitsubishi, Rockwell, Siemens and other manufacturers. Discrete I/O and serial protocols are available to support older PLCs and devices without network connectivity.

One more thing: integrating a vision system into a factory network shouldn’t require you to change your equipment or learn a new automation system. You can have a high performance vision system that works successfully with the equipment you already have.