Roboguide - INTP-251 invalid tool number

    Hi,
    Setting up cell in roboguide.
    I wrote a simple program using UTOOL[1].
    Now there's a new tool that I'm supposed to use.


    I set the new tool up as UTOOL[4], I added instruction UTOOL_NUM = 4 at the top of the program.
    However as soon as my first point is about to execute (P[1]) I get INTP-251 error.


    What am I missing?


    Thanks,
    Tom

    Programmed points are Utool and Uframe sensitive. You can do one of two things (without getting too deep):
    Use position registers with the new tool frame. Position registers are global and will run with any frames you choose. You will need to verify that you will get the results you're after with positioning of the tool and part, etc.
    You can also make a new program that uses the new tool with programmed points. You can transform the current program and have it use the new tool frame with the old points. The tool offset utility is in the utilities menu.


    You can also copy the program and touch up each point one by one with the new tool frame active. This can be daunting...

    My new tool is nearly identical to the old one.
    We don't know which one we're going to use so I wanted to keep both under two different UTOOL numbers.


    So I could ONLY switch tools if I used PRs, however since I used Ps I can't do that?


    I thought the whole point of tool frames was that you can change EOAT and just change the current UTOOL[#]?


    Thanks,
    Tom

    Yes, you can switch tools wit the same program only if you use PRs.


    Yes, the point of tool frames is so you can switch tool frames as the EOAT changes, however, some planning up front helps to make everything work smoothly.


    How many points are in the original program? If there are alot of points, it wight be easier to simply write new values (from the new tool) into your current tool frame.

    It's a short program (10 points) so no big deal changing it or switching to PRs. Just wanted to understand.


    Another thing (first thing that popped in my mind) was to just load the new tool in roboguide into UTOOL[1] overriding the old one. That would probably work, just wanted to see if I can keep both tools under different UTOOLS and switch between them.


    Personally I like PRs but I think Ps are safer (more difficult to modify by someone not familiar with TP programming ie operator).


    Thank you.

    You can write a line of code to change the value of your tool while retaining all of your other frame info:
    Store the values for tool 1 and tool 4 in PRs [1] and [4], respectively.
    Utool 1=PR[1] for using the coordinates for your current tool 1
    Utool 1=PR[4] for using the coordinates for tool 4


    Run one line of code or the other to overwrite the tool frame as needed.


    My thought is that if someone is going to make changes, they will, whether it's a point, position or numeric register or anything else.

    Personally I like PRs but I think Ps are safer (more difficult to modify by someone not familiar with TP programming ie operator).


    Position registers have many desirable qualities, but they also have some quirks. Pos registers can be modified within the controller at any time and can cause programmed motion to pause for a short time when the controller checks to make sure nothing new is being written to that register before moving to it. There's probably a better technical definition of this phenomenon and I don't have time to look it up.

    Use TOOL OFFSET. It's under Menu > Utilities > Tool Offset. It's basically a way to copy an existing program & modify the P's to a new program name with a new UTool associated with them. There's 2 pages to the function but it doesn't show that there is. The 2nd page is where you define the existing tool # & the new 1. You may want to read up on it a bit, I don't recall the exact specifics of the choice of TCP fixed or Robot fixed.

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