How This Book can Help You

This playbook is part 3 of my 4-part series on PLC programming. It is an exhaustive collection of my tutorials and demo videos on how you can develop and embed the Cognex In-Sight Machine Vision System in Programmable Logic Controller (PLC).

You will find this book very helpful if you are an electrician, an instrumentation technician, a manufacturing operator, an automation professional or engineer looking to looking to progress their career or level up their knowledge of Machine Vision for industrial development, and to acquire advanced PLC programming skills.

There are 6 chapters in this book. They are accompanied with 23 in-depth HD demo videos that you can download. These videos simplify everything you need to understand, and help you speed up your learning of Cognex In-Sight Machine Vision for industrial development. There is also a link in this book for you to download my PLC programs (codes) for your revision.

I assume you have little knowledge of Machine Vision application to PLCs. So I prepared this book in such a way that when you read it and study the accompanying demo videos (23 episodes), you will not only have an in-depth knowledge of the different parameters which need to be configured in order to properly connect and communicate a Cognex camera to your PLC, you will also learn how to purchase, upgrade/downgrade the device firmware and trigger the camera. This will help gain a lot of job experience you need to build innovations and earn higher salaries.

I start with the basics, that is, an overview of the Cognex In-Sight 7000 Series Camera, and then move on to the detail of the In-Sight Software. Then I proceed to the Cognex pattern and part inspection tools, as well as how to trigger the Cognex In-Sight Camera. I went as far as dedicating a whole chapter to a 3-part in-depth tutorial on how to read bar codes with the camera.

So, after studying this book and the demo videos, you should develop a hands-on approach to the installation and integration of Cognex into Studio 5000 Rockwell Environment, and be able to use it in real world industrial applications.

One of the questions I get asked often by beginners is, where can I get a free download of RSLogix software to practice? I provide in this book links to a free version of the RSLogix Micro Starter Lite (which is essentially the same programming environment as the RSLogix 500 Pro) and a free version of the RSLogix Emulate 500.

In Chapter 4, I also provide links to download the demo edition of RSLogix 5000 / Studio 5000 Logix Designer to your system. I do not only show you how to get these important Rockwell Automation software for free and without hassle, I also show you how to install, configure, navigate and use them to write ladder logic programs.