Problem uploading simulation to Kuka

[jtube002]

Hello Everyone,

First time posting here, excited to be part of the community! Our university just acquired 2 Kuka robots and are eager to use them. We have downloaded Kuka|PRC and have followed a few tutorials and have created several simulations. We have even upload a successful simulation to the robot, the simulation we uploaded was very simple and just moved the robot around with the flange as the TCP. The current simulation we are trying to upload is a wire foam cutter simulation but when we try to upload it two issues are occurring. First, is that we cannot select the code from the USB that we insert into the controller, we can open it and copy and paste it into a code made on the regular programs folder, then we have to run the simulation from there (this even occurred the first time we uploaded a simulation). Second, now that we have a tool mounted and a simulation running in the computer when we upload the code we still have to copy and paste into a regular program made in the programs folder, and now we can not even run the simulation because we are getting software limits on axis 5 although there should be nothing that causes that. We suspect that it might be that we have only added a tool geometry in PRC but not actually made a TCP on the robot itself, because that is the only difference we can see.

So to summarize, we would really appreciate some guidance on how to select and run a program from the USB without copying and pasting it into another program and how can we resolve the software limit to axis 5 when there is no reason that it should be happening. If need be I can upload our script and a picture of the robot setup.

Thank you very much,
Jorge 

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

Hello Jorge,

Great to hear that you got robots! Can you provide some more details on the controller - is it a KRC2 or KRC4? If the robots are new, it will most likely be KRC4.
Basically the approach to get a *.src program to the robot is that you need to copy it to the robot drive (e.g. R1/Program) on the controller - not into D: or C:.
The more common approaches are to use a USB stick or Ethernet file shares. Note that the USB port on the back of the smartPAD can be picky, rather use the ones on the controller at first. Also you need to be in the user group "Expert" to access the USB stick. The default user group password consists of four letters and is easy to guess, starting with a k.
"Behind" the user interface is a regular Windows which you can access through the Service/Minimize HMI menu (again: Expert user). You can then e.g. create a folder called "Transport" on the D: drive and share it via Ethernet to PCs in the same network.
To run a program, you still need to copy it from the user interface (NOT the Windows Explorer) to the robot drive.

It is not possible to run programs directly off the USB stick at all. Also, to run a program you need to "Select" and not "Open" it.
Final issue: Every program has got a program name on top. You will run into issues if there are programs with different file names but identical program names.

Your axis limit issue is easy to solve. As you correctly stated in your post, you need to set up the tool on the robot as well. The usual workflow is to calibrate a tool at the robot, and then enter the resulting tool number and XYZABC values into the simulation. Also refer to that sticky post: http://forum.robotsinarchitecture.org/index.php/topic,115.0.html

One last remark: The KUKA trainings are not really crucial for many things that we're doing, however it would be good to have at least one person who knows the basics, in particular relating to safety.
I don't mind helping you along at all, but if you do not know the difference between e.g. T1 and T2/AUT then you could get yourself or someone else seriously hurt.

Let's say you run a program in T1 mode with 50% PTP speed and it's nice and slow. Then you play around the key and switch into T2/AUT and all of a sudden the robot will move 10x as fast, with the same program.
Just as an example...

Best,
Johannes