Real-time X tool axis movement ?

[Xylotica]

Hi !

My plasma torch comes with an tension divider output.
What that does is give you the value of the arc tension divided by a fixed number (to avoid frying the analog input of the robot).
This information tells you if the material you are cutting is too far away from the torch, which can occur if your sheet metal is not completely flat or if your more complex part is not exactly the shape that you have modeled in the simulation.

What I would like to do is to increase or decrease the "X" of the tool axis which will always be normal to the surface in my case, thus it will increase or reduce the torch distance to the material in order to produce a better cut.

Am I dreaming or is this feasible ?

Cheers,

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Hello,

This is exactly what the RobotSensorInterface (RSI) is made for - you collect some data with an external sensor and then use a real-time capable system to stream toolpath-offset coordinates to the robot. It should be available for KRC2 as well.
A more simple solution may be to e.g. adjust the tool calibration through code, something like this...
$TOOL.X = 125 + $ANIN[5] * 10
You can then put it in as a Custom-KRL component and call it throughout the code. Maybe that could also be run through the sps.sub (but try it in regular code first!).
I did not test that, but it seems plausible ;)

Best,
Johannes

[Xylotica]

Adjust the tool calibration during execution !
Wow...
I've no idea what the sps.sub thing is though.

Cheers,

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

It's a file that is cyclically executed in the background, SPS stands for PLC in German.
It should never contain movement commands, but can contain logic that e.g. triggers outputs based on system variables etc.

Best,
Johannes

[Xylotica]

RSI.... does it come with a price tag ?

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

It may differ by region, I sent you an eMail!
Best, Johannes

[Xylotica]

Hi Johannes,

From the RobotForum : "$TOOL can be only read in SPS, modifying only works in robot task." , so I guess that means I cannot change the tool settings in a .dat or .src file.
So here comes the next question : where is the "sps.sub" file ?
Also : if I alter this file, I suppose that it will be executing the tool correction command for ALL my programs, which is not what I want, so is there a way of calling a specific sps.sub file ?

The "Function Generator" seems more suited for this ; have you ever used it ?

Thanks,

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Hello,

Actually if I read it correctly it means that you can set it in a regular robot program, but not in the sps.sub, where you can only read it.
The sps.sub is in R1/System - you may only see it when you are in the Expert user group.
And the sps.sub is normal KRL, so if you want the enable/disable certain features, you can just use IF... THEN ...ENDIF with some variable. Either define a global variable for that, or just use an digital output that is not connected to an actual physical output.

Best,
Johannes