Robot Serial Native Communications

Note: These steps only apply when Robot is selected as the Device, and Serial Native is selected as the Protocol in the Communication section.
  1. After selecting Serial Native as the Protocol, EasyBuilder will automatically search your job for any Location or Inspection Tools that define a fixture and generate a data string representing the fixture.
  2. In the Format Output String tab, any tool that generates a fixture will be listed in the Position Name drop-down. If your job only contains one tool that returns positional data, it will be selected by default. Otherwise, select the tool whose output string you want to send from the Position Name drop-down list. The formatted string will be displayed, as well as the number of characters in the string, for reference purposes.

  3. If necessary, click the Serial Port Settings tab to define the serial communication settings. EasyBuilder automatically determines the serial protocol, based on the Device Setup selections. The serial port settings are saved to the vision system upon leaving the Communication step.

    Note:

    • The Serial Port Settings options vary per In-Sight model and applicable I/O module. If connected to a supported I/O module, first click the I/O Module button to open the I/O Module Configuration dialog and configure the I/O module.

    • In-Sight Micro 1000 series vision systems support serial communication only when connected to the CIO-MICRO or CIO-MICRO-CC I/O module.

    • There are two options for enabling serial communication for the In-Sight 70xx - 74xx series vision system: using the Breakout cable or using the CIO-MICRO or CIO-MICRO-CC I/O module. When connected to the Breakout cable (and there is no connection to an I/O module), the vision system allows one discrete input line and one discrete output line to be configured as Serial Receive and Serial Transmit, respectively.
    • If the In-Sight 70xx - 74xx series vision system is configured for use with the CIO-MICRO or CIO-MICRO-CC I/O module, the RS-232 TRANSMIT and RS-232 RECEIVE pins on the Power and I/O Breakout cable are disabled. Use the I/O module's RS-232 OUT port (DB9) to connect to a serial device.
    • In-Sight 8000 series vision systems only support serial communication when connected to the CIO-MICRO I/O module.

    • The CIO-WENET I/O module does not support serial communication.

  4. Now that the string has been formatted, the robot controller can request the data by sending the In-Sight Native Mode command, EV GetCellValue("Job.Robot.FormatString"). The EV GetCellValue("Job.Robot.FormatString") returns all of the data formatted in the string with a single command.
Note:  If you have not defined a fixture in your job, or you want to create a custom string or customize the format of your string, press the Custom Format... button, which will launch the FormatString dialog. From this dialog, you can add a different string, modify the strings and/or rearrange the order of the data that will be sent by selecting the data from the list and clicking either the Up or Down buttons to set your desired order. Once you have finalized your string modifications, press the OK button.