roboguide: simulated conveyor and linetracking with parts

    I'm trying out simulating a conveyor in Roboguide, complete with parts, line-tracking and pick and place. I've followed the steps in the Roboguide help (under 'Conveyor Tracking with Roboguide'), and got a conveyor going with parts and can start and stop everything using the conveyor toolbar.

    After writing a simple tracking program and testing it (again using the conveyor toolbar) I think I got everything in place (tracking works as I expect it to work), but am facing difficulties getting the simulated conveyor to give me a proper signal on the part detect switch (which I've configured as being on DI[1]. No tracking queues yet).

    The manual isn't terribly clear on this, so I am wondering if I'm supposed to be using a part detect switch at all, or that the 'simulation' takes care of this for me.

    In short: does anyone have any insight into how one is supposed to synchronize a virtual conveyor with a tracking program in Roboguide?

    I've done several systems in HandlingPro with line tacking. The digital input seems to be a red herring. As far as I can tell it does nothing in sim.

    A way around this, I've found, is to use LINECOUNT and SETTRIG commands to reset the line tracking frame. You can then throw those into a program in a macro and have it trigger off of a digital input.

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    Quote from flatcurve

    I haven't tried it since maybe V7 Rev D so I don't know if they've fixed it, but my understanding was that line tracking never fully worked in HandlingPro. The guy I talked to at FANUC said that they just use PickPRO when they want to simulate line tracking, even if it's just one robot.

    Thanks for your reply. Tracking itself works perfectly: I can use the 'conveyor toolbar' to move my conveyor backwards and forwards and the robot will follow it, like it is supposed to.

    Do you think that this issue has been resolved in the newer versions?

    Quote from Nation


    I've done several systems in HandlingPro with line tacking. The digital input seems to be a red herring. As far as I can tell it does nothing in sim.

    A way around this, I've found, is to use LINECOUNT and SETTRIG commands to reset the line tracking frame. You can then throw those into a program in a macro and have it trigger off of a digital input.

    Hm. That is what I have been doing, but that seems to make it impossible to synchronise the robot with the conveyor if I use simulated parts (I might be missing something here).

    From the Roboguide help I got the impression that the simulation should take care of triggering the part detect, based on the position of the sensor (in the tracking schedule) and the position of the part(s).

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