Repositioning robot without configurations

bcrowell

I would like to be able to reposition the robot in RS with either Mechanism Joint Jog or simply rotating about the TCP, but at a target defined by my CAD model within RS.  Since configurations are not available with each move and seem to inconsistently change sometimes from move to move, I would like to define how I want the joints and then just manually move it to the targets I select in RS.

I seem to be fighting to get the robot to reach its targets and yet I know I could manually move the robot there on the pendant (there is an operator programming on the robot who is doing this much faster than I have been able to in RS).  Rather than doing that, though, I want to program in RS so that the data is coming from CAD.  Is there a way to have more control of the joint values rather than using configurations?  Is there a way to "lock" the robot at the TCP and move the joints how you want around it or get the robot manually in the configuration that you want and snap the TCP to the target in that configuration?

Johannes Weiman

Hi,
For six axis robots a specific position and orientation can only be reached in a finite number of ways, and those are defined by the configurations. So basically it is not possible to have "more control". 
You can switch between configurations (of the current TCP) by right-clicking the robot in Layout and selecting the "Configurations" sub-menu.

Regards,
Johannes

bcrowell

So is changing the rotation of the tool pretty much the only way to keep the robot from jumping configurations between instructions?  I have some paths that move just the way I want and then they suddenly flip and crash into the part.

We have an inverted robot on a boom so there is also the external axis to adjust.  I see there is behavior similar to what I was looking for, where within Mechanism Joint Jog you can lock the TCP and move the external axis.  That is what I was hoping to be able to find for the robot axes to help avoid configuration "flips", especially since you can't modify the configuration of each instruction.

Johannes Weiman

If you have external axes or your application allows you to rotate the target/tool, then of course you have additional degrees of freedom when creating the path. But in the end each target must be well defined with a specific orientation and external axes values.

What you can do to avoid configuration flips is to perform Auto Configuration which minimizes configuration changes from target to target, or add ConfL\Off / ConfJ\Off which ignores target configurations.