Error Codes to PLC

Check whether you HMI can communicate over SNPX - in that case you can access the alarm list and many other items on the robot directly from HMI (ProFace panels work like charm here).
If not, then I guess it would be tricky to exchange strings in the way that you wish...

If you don't want to go the SNPX route, you can get the error output option for $500. It uses 3 group outputs to output the facility number, the error code, and the error's severity to the PLC over normal IO.

A relative simple way of sending Error-Codes to a PLC is writing a small KAREL-program wich uses ERR_DATA() to get the last active alarm at your teachpendant and writing the facility-code (for example "SRVO") and the specified-facility-code in registers or direct to GO´s

Run this KAREL-program by BG-Logic program in constant time intervalls.

But don`t forget to check if the KAREL-prog is already running when you try to run it again.

I´ve tried this with a R-30iB Controller and it works fine.

If you have the EthernetIP option on the robot you can just read the error codes with a MSG instruction.

Quote from HawkME

If you have the EthernetIP option on the robot you can just read the error codes with a MSG instruction.

I am going to apologies first off for any basic questions lol I am pretty new to the robotics world and know even less about PLC's. We are looking to do something similar to what was described above. We are looking to send any fault information we can to the plc. We are having a issue with a robot but it is very random and we cannot seem to reproduce it. We were hoping to come up with something where we can store the errors on the plc and see what actually happened. What parameters would we we have to set up on the AB PLC to use this MSG instruction do get the fault to the PLC?

Do you have the EthernetIP option installed on your robot?

Yes right now we are going to do some testing with it on roboguide but we are using a back up from a real robot that does have ethernetIP option and is connected to a AB PLC

The Fanuc EthernetIP manual has an example to read the current alarms. You can read the top active alarm or an array of active alarms. If you try to read more than exist the MSG instruction will error. I usually wait until the fault UO signal turns on to enable the MSG instruction.