I apologize for the length of this, but I have attempted to include everything....
I am attempting to do image backups on a material handling robot used for decking windshields. It is a R-2000ib with a R-30ib controller.
It is equipped with usb port on the controller and one on the TP. There is also the PCMCIA port on the cpu.
I have had to do backups on these robots about 18 months ago and was successful. I had no issue. The robots are almost 2 years old.
The robot I am having issues with has faulted a number of times recently but only when I was not on shift. The technician dealing with the issue was not able to get out of the fault. He believed that the robot had corrupted a single file (same file each time) and felt the only way out was to re-install the image files. To do this he has used my year old backups to restore the robot via a usb stick. These backups were ok and although we had to install more recent TP programs afterwards we have been running production on them since. (Note: I don't think he diagnosed the fault correctly and feeding off the absolute insanity in this place let a small thing spiral into a big thing, but I wasn't there so cannot be certain.)
When I attempt to do image backups when using the controller usb port the TP screen would sit at the grey "image backup please wait" screen. I waited 14 minutes before giving up. Cycling power produced no difference. removing the usb stick gave no difference. Removing the usb stick during power down would allow the robot to start backup.
When I use the TP usb port I get the same result except that I cannot get the robot to start backup once the image backup is in progress. I have to do a BMON start and then config, cold start. I cannot do a config start, it will not work. I can do a config start at other times without issue.
I started doing this backup using Transcend 4 gb sticks (which they use on over a thousand similar body shop robots without issue). The thinking was that the problem may be with the sticks, so I tried new sticks fresh out of the box, I tried formatting them on a pc, then tried formatting them on the robot, then tried an older stick that was 2gb formatted to FAT, Then tried Formatting the old stick to FAT32. Then we thought the version of windows was corrupting the drives making them incompatible, so we tried new virgin drives again.
Many of the sticks that failed on this robot have since been used on other robots without issue. It is safe to say that the issue is not with the sticks.
The robot is seeing the stick, which I proved by attempting to set the drive without the stick inserted. In both the Controller mounted usb and the TP usb it recognized the absence of the drive, and allowed the device to be set once the drive was inserted. When the backup was attempted when the stick was inserted into the controller the drive was found afterwards to have the FROM0 file on it with 0 size.
There is a concern that someone may have used the robot to charge their phone damaging the usb port. It would be hard for an uninformed person to locate the usb port on the TP but not impossible.
(As my backup image files from 18 months ago are also installed on a pc terminal near the cell, I cannot help but wonder if someone attempted to use their phone to download files from this terminal to the robot...is that even possible?).
I am now worried that we cannot restore using these ports, and am afraid to attempt it unless absolutely necessary as I may corrupt the existing memory with the attempt.
I am working on creating a test cable to test the power supply at the usb port...(unless someone knows of professionally made device that is out there for this purpose). Aside from testing power I am not sure how to test anything else on a usb port?
This robot communicates with INOS vision system for positioning, and there is some thinking that there is constant polling between the robot and INOS...I don't know what that means exactly or how to check for it...???
I thought that during an image backup all robot activities would be suspended so any outside device sending to the robot would be ignored...?
I have ordered a 128mb PCMCIA card but will not have it for a couple of weeks so cannot check if this problem is only with the usb ports.
Is their something I am missing?
I have asked for input from a number of sources, and so far no-one has seen or heard of anything like this.
This is a big deal for the plant, as the windshield cell is a bottleneck, and at this stage we have a robot that has a possible history of corrupting files, and potentially no way to backup or restore images. any help would be appreciated.