cognex vs keyence vision systems

We curently standardize on Cognex Insight cameras for our plant vision system(s). We have a few areas where we can use more cameras to measure, check id codes and pass/fail
our products and systems.

Keyence has made a sales pitch and the cost is much lower (upfront), and a couple of our project engineers (not controls engineers) are sold.

What experiences have you had with Keyence cameras and is there a strong case for migrating to them over Cognex (outside of the upfront cost)?

Our controls department is perfectly fine with carrying on down the Cognex road and the support we get from our local distributor/ supplier is incredible.

Our shop is primarily Cognex, but we have a new line that has Cognex and Keyence. I'm impressed with some of the functions Keyence offers that Cognex doesn't. For example, they can do grading functions on an imager that's roughly the cost of a basic 2-D Ethernet reader from Cognex. I would say that, overall, I've been pretty impressed with the Keyence sensors. It will come down to, do you want to spend the time/money migrating the existing sensors over down the road, or keep a mixed bag.

We have quite a few Keyence systems here at our facility. I have not dealt with cognex, so unfortunuately I cannot compare. I have taken a liking to the Keyence systems though, and if I had it my way I would use them on every vision setup that we use.

Currently on a project right now where they dont want to spend the money to get a nice system so I am forced to use a **** IFM system.(we all know how that'll turn out)

Fourpaw,

personally speaking, my experience with keyence was an absolute nightmare. we bought a piece of equipment from an oem for hole sizing and the guy from keyence promised him the moon. the guy from cognex refused to quote it based on what the specs were, he said they couldn't do it and even showed us that the keyence system wouldn't dp it either. the oem bought it anyway and my boss signed off on it sight unseen based on pressure from upper management.

when we got it in, nothing worked, he didn't set the system up correctly, promised more than it could do.

that was for sizing of holes, don't know anything about their recognition system.


FOR your application, may i suggest the following additional costs to consider.

#1 training and learning curve.
#2 spare parts and what happens when you don't have them.
#3 when you are out of a cognex camera, what will be involved with converting over to the keyence unit - wiring changes, interface problems, communications problems?
the same can be said for going the other way.

May i also suggest that if you do change to keyence, get a demo unit for 30 days and bench test it, put it through its paces. then go to the floor using care to see if it will work. do it on a piece by piece basis and get a feel for the system first.
leave it in place for several months before getting another one. thats my opinion.

regards,
james

This thread is right up my street, we are having keyence in tomorrow to setup a demo of one of there vision systems and awaiting cognex to do the same, we are using the cameras to check for correct spacing of product once it is on a board, and to check the roundness of the bagels. Will be interesting to see the results and price difference, what are the two systems like for setting up?

I have used and worked in-depth with both and I find each has a slightly different place.

For relatively simple jobs where you don't have to measure / verify a lot of different things, I like the Keyence. I find it a bit cumbersome to program, but still not too bad.

For applications where there are a lot of different measurements, then I perfer the Cognex spreadsheet style. It allows me to set-up, watch, modify many if not all my measurements on one screen. It's tools seem a bit more intuitive as well.

In short, I see no reason to select Cognex over Keyence if the application is not too complex.

Steve

A MUST to consider !!!

where you setup and do the tests will give totally different results than actual factory floor conditions!

use actual production parts, UNTOUCHED - by that i mean not cleaned.

if you see someone clean them, get new parts - how else can they make it work? if they clean them, say the production parts aren't clean, make it work dirty. see what they say.

color variation, oxide color, paint color and tint, sharp edges. this will have an effect on your test results.

our cognex rep was the best, he gave us no BS. if he could
do it he said so and was there to commission it. if he couldn't, he would tell you why.

couldn't ask for a better guy.

regards,
james

Fourpaw said:

check id codes

Click to expand...

This is easy with any newer system

Fourpaw said:

and pass/fail our products and systems.

Click to expand...

This needs better definition. Is it color matching? Blob finding? Width measurement? How fast?

Fourpaw said:

Keyence has made a sales pitch and the cost is much lower (upfront), and a couple of our project engineers (not controls engineers) are sold.

What experiences have you had with Keyence cameras and is there a strong case for migrating to them over Cognex (outside of the upfront cost)?

Our controls department is perfectly fine with carrying on down the Cognex road and the support we get from our local distributor/ supplier is incredible.

Click to expand...

My experience with Keyence and DVT/Cognex are getting old, about 6 years now. The Keyence system I had was 1/4 the cost, but was color programmable and good enough for what I was doing. It had serial port quirks and limited I/O. It did better than the black and white systems when I was looking at shiny 10" wide black rubber coated sheet with 1" wide black gum rubber strip applied to the edges...no matter how I lit it they would lock in on the inside edges sometimes in my width measuring application.

But, when I backed it with a coral colored sheet of plastic shim stock. The Keyence could color match and measure the gap (edge finding) in that back ground color, ignoring the inside edges of the gum strip with one simple LED light and a good solid color to match.

The DVT (now Cognex) systems we had was doing width measurement very quickly as well as blob (defects, back-lit holes). It was a high end system at the time, very powerful stuff, and I am sure that has also improved. It was capable of doing 100 times the processing we were using at that time.

We us a range of Cognex camera's 5400/1100/1400 and Keyence cv/cx which are all fine. We also have Keyence XG 7000 the software for which is an absolute Pain stay away from it. ( it also costs ~$2500 for the software licence per pc) You can get a 10 day licence we found out after which you can install repeatedly! They have removed link from website but it still works. PM me

Not read all the replies yet but a customer of mine has ripped out all the Cognex cameras we installed & replaced them with IP cameras. The software for inspection runs on a PC and no matter what updates happen in future any camera will do. Can't fault then

We Currently use Keyence IV-Navigator cameras. We have a lot of trouble with repetition and accuracy. Our biggest struggle is with projection welded nuts. Since they can be placed in any position. The Keyence cameras we use have trouble seeing them all the time. Or giving me false positives. I am having a Cognex rep in soon to look at switching to them as I think the Blob function would work much better for our application.

if Cognex is your corporate standard, then that's it, discussion over.
the cost savings will be eat up due to the learning curve, set up time, and system debug, down time, and explaining to the customer why they got the wrong or defective parts.

james

I expect that Fourpaw made up his mind six years ago.

Cognex is the best

Cognex is the best.

world class tech support.

matured, robust and concrete software

flexibility

easy

The newer Keyence systems are pretty fair. Initial setup was okay, although, IMO, the Cognex was easier. That may just be a familiarity issue, though.

Also keep in mind, even though you can connect multiple cameras to a Keyence system, you can only fire one at a time.