Prevent Rotation of Tool

[tjroy]

We are using a tool that never needs to rotate the A06 Axis, and while it's ok to do for the most part, we have a PTP move command that is only a 20° rotation, yet the robot decides to go 340° in the opposite direction to achieve it. Is there a way to set the limits of the A06 rotation, or disable it entirely?

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Hello,

You can set the rotation to infinite, meaning the robot will take the shortest path. For the KUKA|prc simulation that means simply right-clicking a robot component and selecting the infinite A6 option. On the actual hardware, you can set the axis type in the $machine.dat if I remember correctly. Of course infinite rotation means that you could easily wind up cables as well.
You could also use the TURN value of a PTP movement to define whether A6 is positive or negative in that particular example.

I'm not sure if disabling the axis is feasible, that would probably be a question for KUKA support. I could imagine that you could mess with the gear value of the axis, so that the robot thinks that it's moving a lot while it is physically only moving a tiny bit. That would be pretty "hacky" and the simulation would not fit the physical robot anymore.

Best,
Johannes

[tjroy]

Oh those would both solve this perfectly, thanks!