Messages

At last !
Wall-E is operationnal, and I thought I'd start out with a little bit of wood milling.
I had this large log (which, it turns out had nails in it) and I made a wavy surface on one corner.
Then I thought I ougth to make multiple offsets so that I could "dig" layer by layer until I reached the actual surface I want to achieve.
So I just selected the surfaces one by one starting with the "highest" down to the "deepest" surface and used a "Divide surface" component.
I was quite happy until the mill went in a straight line between the final point of the first surface, and the initial point of the second surface, making a deep groove in the wood.
Then I realized that indeed I was a newb in all his glory.

But thinking about it, how could I add an intermediate point to avoid this since this is just one component ?
Should I use one "divide surface"component per surface and add an offset component between each ?
This would be impossible if I had a large number of layers to mill, wouldn't it ?

Then I realized another problem with the "divide surface"component : it forces to alternate between "Down milling" and "Up milling" since the mill will always go back and forth on the surface.
It was easy to see because in one direction, all went fine, and in the other, I could see large chips of wood being thrown all over the place.
What is the trick to make sure the milling is always ,say, "Up milling"?

Cheers

Oh boy... It turned out that I can't just replace the breaker because then the plug would not be suitable for other types of equipment in terms of human protection.
We are in the process of drawing a separate line from the counter, and we will wire the controller directly to that dedicated line with a 300 mA breaker.

I really wish that I had gotten this kind of information sooner ; it would have saved me a whole lot of time.
Maybe that would be something to add in a "Robot operator startup guide", or "Kuka for dummies".

I also noticed that there is a bolt with a grounding symbol on the robot base plate.
Should I connect this to the ground ? It feels awkward to have a tiny wire running next to those huge power lines...

Cheers,

I will soon have a plasma cutter with a CNC torch for Wall-E to play with.
Cutting pipe fittings to make funky tubular structures will be a blast !

Would anyone like to share his experience with such a setting ?
In particular, I have no idea how to trigger the toch using the KRC2 controller.
I fear that the plasma cutter saleman will only have experience with conventionnal CNC tables.

Cheers,

There 'ya go.

It turns out that laser cutting thick plates is not going to give me the right tolerance for the holes, and that welding thin plates will likely warp them.
Therefor, I am going for a non-welded assembly with a plywood spacer.

Let's see how that goes...

Hi Johannes,

I optimized my design for a 1500x3000mm sheet, and used 72° angles so that it could eventually go full circle on a future robot with bigger Axis 1 angular range.
Less than 1000 € ? Hey, that's a good deal ! Any links ?
I had a quote for a 1000x2000mm table with a ø16 holes grid and a few holders for 3000€ VAT included...

I plan to go for a ø28 hole grid so that I can use Bessey or similar holders.
My local laser cutter guy can't cut 25mm thick steel which is required for ø28 fastening holes.

I thought I'd just use two 6mm thick plates with an array of 13mm wide spacers ; something similar to this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31L4VTfFH1A

Cheers,

I just watched a video about strong hand tools : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbHRrcNED58
This gave me the idea to make a 25mm thick steel laser-cut table with ø28 holes to place my fixtures.
It could have a pie-slice (76°) shape to follow the robot's work area.
With 3 such tables, it would cover the entire angular scope of axis 1.

Comments ?

Thanks Johannes.

A 40€ breaker instead of a trip to the KUKA service center.... deal !

Cheers,

At last, I got Wall-E on a proper pedestal, made accessories to move it around with a Fenwick, and welded the mill fitting :

But now, as soon as I try to move the arm, it activates the breaker of the power outlet.
I already had similar trouble on another outlet, but at least I was able to move the arm.

I can hear the breaker shut off the power outlet as soon as I press one of the enabling switches on the back of the control panel.

Could it be the outlet's breaker which is too weak ?
I really hope it's not a nasty short-circuit hidden deep in the innards of the robot or the console...

Cheers,

Hi !

I am fooling around with a milling definition here, and I thought I'd make a mesh out of the surface I'm supposed to follow and use that mesh as a collision reference.
It turns out the collision check does not detect a particular moment where the robot's wrist hits the surface.

I tried also by making a mesh from the surface in Rhino and referencing it in GH.
Then I thought maybe the mesh had to be a closed volume, but this didn't work either.

What button did I forget to press this time ?

Cheers,

Oh well,

I found a piece of ø405x6 pipe rusting in the scrapyard, and I thought it would be even better than my fancy bent sheet metal, so I went back to the drawing board...
Laser parts are ordered ; can't wait to get this thing done and start the serious stuff.

Hi Johannes,
The content of the Usb is displayed properly, and the file is tiny.
I just use "Edit+copy" and then move to the robot icon, in "programs" where I have a few test .src's that i made using the teaching method.
There, I just use "Edit+paste" and istead of pasting, I get this message.

Could it be something with the header ?
Or perhaps the .src file that is written by your program is not compatible "as is" with KRC2 ?

Frustrating times...
I have only one afternoon per week to get things moving, and I keep bumping into these kinds of silly problems...

It looks like I'm going to climb this ladder one support message after the other...
Now that I can access my USB drive (Johannes, I indeed needed to be in the administrator user group), the pendant will not allow me to copy my .src file to the kuka program folder.
The error message is "File description cannot be processed".

Is there a " kuka for dummies book somewhere " ?

Cheers,

Thanks Johannes,

I'll try to setup a wireless link between my laptop and the console's PC ; I bet it can even be powered by the PC itself, or maybe plug-in a wi-fi hard-drive through USB.
There HAS to be something at this day and age to push data wirelessly between two computers.

But I understand I'll still have to get in and out of the KP...err...C  to move the files around because KUKA won't allow me to browse my drive.

Also, I noticed that the Group user groups always defaults to "Minion" or "Scoundrel", or whatever name they gave to the second-class users, and I need to change it to "Expert" and enter the super-secret code every time.
Is there a way to set "Expert" as default user ?

Cheers,

Switch to Windows... I tried to do that but this pendant interface looks completely watertight.
Where's the "Get me the hell out of here !" button ?

If I understand you well, I need to create a network drive linked to a folder on my laptop.
But I suppose that I can't connect the two computers directly ; I need to go through a switch, right ?
Also, I need to drill a hole in the KRC2 console (uhg !) to let the ethernet cable through without having to open the door (which will of course shut down the power).

I've got the tool and base definition figured out, but I am unable to move the 92 kb of my tiny .src file from my computer to the robot's brain :(