SRC & DAT file headers

[bails]

Hi All,

I created an offline SRC file where I included at the top a copy of a working source file header from the same robot (&ACCESS RVP, &REL 15, &COMMENT My Comment etc. etc.). I installed the file and it would not compile due to an "incompatible header format" error. I had to eventually create an new empty source file on the robot where it generated the header info, afterwhich I copied my code from the uncompiled file into the new file and all was good. For info, there was no DAT file associated with the SRC file, I was just creating a file for some auxilliary functions and subprograms.

Some questions re the header format of the Kuka source and dat files.

1) What is the purpose of &ACCESS and &REL and what do the generated values mean?

2) Should it be possible to create an SRC file in notepad and have it work on the robot? (I can always re-edit existing files in notepad without any problem)

3) This is an older robot running with Win95 so is there a possibility of issues with Unicode characters being used in any offline generated file?

Thanks in advance...

[TygerDawg]

Don't know the details, it is all very mysterious & apparently secret.   My experience is that KUKA doesn't want to let anyone know this.  I don't have a clue about &ACCESS, but I vaguely recall that &REL indicates some sort of sequential edit revision to compare different programs with the same name.  You can experiment by opening/editing/saving/examining the header multiple times to see if my assumption is correct.

My RobotWorks software outputs a program file with the following SRC header statements:

&ACCESS RVP
&REL 50
&PARAM TEMPLATE = C:\KRC\Roboter\Template\vorgabe
&PARAM EDITMASK = *
DEF Rohr323test( )
DEF_APO_CDIS=3.0
(...& other DEF statements not important at this time.)

If I change the default "Rohr323test()" program definition to my desired program name (which equals the filename) then it all works as is.

At one time I used the teach pendant to create a new program that was blank, then saved it as a template.  I used that to create other programs offline in UltraEdit on my PC.  I was creating path points in RobotWorks and inserting them into the template program.  Did similar for the DAT file when applicable.  It **usually** worked OK.  Except the one time when the KRC2 corrupted my files (changed my A,B,C orientation values to 0,0,0) issued no error, and during first run the robot dutifully followed its directions, crashed my tool, damaged my fixture, and almost gave me a dent on my head.  KUKA KRC2 software engineering puts great fear into me now.  I can only suspect that is the reason the "normal" workflow is use the teach pendant to create programs, teach points, edit & touchup, and run the KUKA way, and everything else is verboten .

[SkyeFire]

&REL appears to change every time a module is accessed, though I haven't tested this scientifically.  From what I hear, it is some sort of access/edit counter. 

&ACCESS controls the the access level and visibility of a module -- whether you can edit it in Operator as opposed to Expert, and whether the KCP display follows the program pointer into a module when it's called as a subroutine.  Unfortunately, I don't have any details on how to manipulate this.  It's one of those things I keep meaning to look into someday.

[py_programmer]

From my info REL is incremented by 1 every time the program is changed. I saw some explanation of it somewhere, but I can't recall where right now. Only REL stuck in my head.