Hello all. This is my first time working on ABB robots, and I was wondering if you could help me out. I have 3 mechanical units: two trunnions which are mounted on a ferris wheel. All three can rotate. I need a way to monitor the angle of each of these units and send out a digital output to the PLC when the trunnions are at a certain angle. I have tried world zones with WZHomeJointDef, WZLimJointDef, and WZDOSet. These work for as long as the mechanical units are activated, but only one may be activated at a time.
The ferris wheel is kind of the master of the other two, and as long as that is activated, then the other two can be monitored by the WZ. However, when it is activated, it is not masked from the robot. In other words, there have to be values in the axis data, otherwise the controller will give me an error telling me to put data in the mechanical unit axis. Now I could manually edit every single point in my programs and make sure that they are all at the correct angle for each point, but there are hundreds all at different angles.
On Fanuc robots, there is an option just to mask out an axis for each program while still monitoring the angle. You can also set reference positions very easily that send out a signal when the trunnion is at a certain angle. Is there any easy way I can mask out the mechanical units from a program but still monitor the angle they are at? Please let me know if you have any ideas. I appreciate it! The controller is an IRC5 if that helps. Thanks!