Add spindle to krc2

It al depends on the I/O options the Vkrc2 or krc2 has installed.
Standard there are no I/o options installed, but there is as standard the devicenet in the MFC card. So you could just get an I/O devicenet device which has an analog out to control your spindle. this has been discussed here a lot.
Modbus is also an option if you can get the hardware for it. you would have to ask kuka for it

To be clear, you want to know if it is possible to control a spindle with modbus using the serial communication port on a VKRC2? because i higly doubt it.
If you have no other options installed i would suggest using the devicenet port on the MFC, and connect external I/O to it.

Hi All,

I know I'm bringing up an old topic (not so old though). I have a KRC2 Ed05 and would like to add a milling spindle to it. I may choose between Devicenet and Profibus. I would like to get your recommendations/suggestions towards the best approach. I am open to purchasing hardware/drivers required to set this up.

Personally, I would like to integrate Spindle drive on a communication protocol (possibly Profibus) and KRC2 acting as a Master to control it. For the future approach, I would connect this KRC2 (and many others) to a high level PLC control to manage the complete fleet on the floor.

I look forward to hearing suggestions from you all.

Thanks

The KRC2 requires add-in hardware in order to use ProfiBus -- a special KUKA-customized version of a particular ProfiBus PCI card. Configuring the KRC2 as a ProfiBus Master also requires using a special piece of KUKA-customized Siemens software (the NCM-Manager) to create the scanlist file. Unless you're familiar with Siemens, it can be a real pain to deal with.

DeviceNet is older, and less advanced, but it's definitely simpler, and the KRC2 has the hardware support built in to the MFC card. No special software required, just editing the correct text files in the KRC. OTOH, a clean 24VDC power supply is required, and DN wiring is a little bit more complicated than PB.

For a simple spindle controller, neither bus has any particular advantage over the other -- they'll both update at the same rate, and provide the same level of control and response.

NCM Manager is just a distributable piece of software that is normally part of S7 programming sofware. this makes it possible to use without hefty price tag or license key for siemens software. but if you do have siemens software, you are set.

Thanks for your replies SkyeFire and panic mode.

Yes, I'm aware of the hardware and software requirements of the Profibus setup (both Master and Slave) on KUKA Robots. I worked a lot with Siemens systems and had chances of developing the systems on Siemens platforms.

Sorry, I may have not elaborated enough, but I was looking for performance differences between both the platforms and that you both have explained neatly.

Thanks

Technically Profibus can outperform DeviceNet since it allows higher baud rates. but in case of KRC2, bottleneck is 12ms interpolation cycle.

I went through Manuals section of the forum and found some manuals on DeviceNET. One of the manuals talks about X12 interface. I dig a bit more and found from panic mode explanation in one of the older posts that it is used in Agilus (still a lot to learn...).

I found out that, we have a LPDN card in our stock which might be used to setup DeviceNET on the robot. However, I would like to be sure that I'm working in the right direction.

After reading more, I understood that I also have an option to use MFC (X801 interface) to setup the DeviceNET.

In case of KRC1/KRC2, DeviceNet was offered as a standard interface on MFC. this DeviceNet interface has some limitations (can only be master, cano only use macid 0, cannot be configured with RSNetworks) but it is awesome for just adding I/O to controller.

to get full blown DeviceNet interface, one must buy LPDN card

to get ProfiBus interface, one must buy ProfiBus card

use of LPDN is required for example if two KRCs need to talk to each other (so one with LPDN can be configured as slave)

Quote from panic mode

NCM Manager is just a distributable piece of software that is normally part of S7 programming sofware. this makes it possible to use without hefty price tag or license key for siemens software. but if you do have siemens software, you are set.

I'm not entirely certain about that. I tried using the "regular" Siemens software once (with the help of an experienced Siemens PLC technician), but never got it to work -- the robot would never accept the binary file.

But, with an identical bus configuration in the NCM software that came with the KUKA ProfiBus option (the same version as the "real" Siemens version), it worked. We spent a week trying to figure out why one worked and the other didn't, but neither Siemens nor KUKA could come up with any better answer than "well, just use the KUKA version."

If I remember correctly, integrating Siemens Profibus Master network on Step 7 could be done from v5.4 and later. Before that, the only option to add a SIMATIC PC was NCM Manager. However, you both are right, one would not find any interface difference between the two software. I mostly used SIMATIC MANAGER (Step 7) to configure Profibus communication on the robot (Master network) and Siemens PLC (Slave configuration).

Nowadays, I use TIA Portal (for new S7-1200 and S7-1500 CPUs) and WorkVisual for KRC4 robots.

i have used both several times. In my experience when NCM version numbers are same (regardless if KUKA or S7), generated output files are binary same.

Also as far as i recall NCM Manager version from KUKA is quite old while S7 software generally includes much newer version. i had cases where one from KUKA did not support some of the newer devices. likely file format generated by S7 was newer and not supported by older drivers used on robot.