TRAP routine or other method for laser control?

dchayden

I am controlling a laser from an IRC5 for a welding application. The laser requires a complex handshake for both startup and shutdown, which I handle with two dedicated routines. In automatic mode, things run beautifully... the startup routine establishes control of the laser, sets parameters, and starts gas flows; smaller subroutines coordinate laser firing with robot motion; and the shutdown routine gracefully terminates laser operations at the end.

The problem is handling laser safety during unanticipated program flows such as manual (non-automatic-mode) operation with an operator who may release the enabling device early, or such as an error condition arising during program operation. Laser firing is handled by a signal that requires EN1, EN2, ES1, ES2, etc. to also be engaged, so that the laser will not fire if something goes amiss. What I cannot figure out is how to also tie in the startup and shutdown routines so that they will execute to completion as the enable loop is opened and closed. A break in EN1, for instance, should also execute the shutdown routine, which includes a series of SetDO and WaitDI statements, even when the main program execution has stopped due to the break in EN1. I believe TRAP will stop execution if the enable loop is open, correct?

Any guidance is appreciated!

lemster68

Maybe event routines for start and stop.

dchayden

I'm unfamiliar with event routines, but I'll look into them. Thanks!

dchayden

Tried that in RS, and it seems to work great!! I'll go out to the floor and try it on the actual machine.

Thanks for the excellent help!

lemster68

You are welcome, good luck!