Using Panel Wizard to create a simple operator interface on teach pendant

    Hi,
    I'm setting up a very simple pick & place operation using CR7-iA / R-30iB Mate.
    We'd rather not use a PLC with a HMI since this is such a small project.


    FANUC has an option (R594 - Panel Wizard) that allows you to create up to 4 panels on the teach pendant and apparently be able to control the variables, registers, the robot, inputs, outputs etc.


    I'm thinking to have the basic buttons: Start, Fault Reset, Hold as well as showing some lights and part count etc.


    What do you guys think about using this as a main operator's panel? (any cons)?


    Thanks,
    Tom

    I'm working on a very similar project, using the robot browser as the HMI. They don't use the panel wizard. For simple cells, I recommend it.


    You can setup pretty extensive HMIs using it. The webpages are created in SharePoint 2007, which is free.


    If you have access to the Fanuc CRC site, you can downloaded the iPendant Controls, which install all the activeX plugins for SharePoint. These plugins can access everything you listed.


    The iPendant Controls also come with a Manual, and a bunch of example webpages. I recommend looking into it before spending money on the panel wizard.

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    Check out my example Fanuc Ethernet/IP Explicit Messaging program here!

    Thanks for your answer.


    So creating HMI screens using the iPendant Controls is done on the PC and then transferred to the robot controller?


    Tom

    Yep, the manual goes over the setup of it, but basically you create the page as a .stm, then load it into the FR drive on the robot (along with any supporting stuff, such as images for your page). Then you can access it via the robot browser on the pendant.

    Check out the Fanuc position converter I wrote here! Now open source!

    Check out my example Fanuc Ethernet/IP Explicit Messaging program here!

    Thanks Nation,


    Will have to somehow find out if there's an advantage of going with Panel Wizard vs iPendant Controls.
    Cost of PW option ($385) aside, I'm looking for speed and ease of development as I'm not familiar with SharePoint.


    Tom

    Do you have Roboguide? We stopped getting panel wizard years ago, it used to be a free option I beleive. If there's something I don't have on a screen & not sure how to do it in SharePoint, I'll enable panel wizard in a Roboguide cell, then bring it over to SharePoint. It's a lot of learn as you go. But Panel Wizard is slow & crude, you'll learn to hate it in a short amount of time.

    Just got the Panel Wizard [option R594], and have quickly setup some buttons in ROBOGUIDE. See attachment.


    However I’m not sure how to attach the functionality to the buttons.


    I would like to know how to:
    • Start & Stop the robot (only 1 program will be used, eq. MAIN - Program Select OTHER, $shell_wrk.$cust_name = MAIN)
    • Reset Faults
    • Increment/Decrement a register using +/- buttons


    Any help will be appreciated.


    Thanks,
    Tom

    Now you should take that .stm file into Sharepoint 2007 & modify it. You will have a lot more options available. The Start, Stop, & Reset I would probably assign to Flags then map the Uops to the Flag Rack, Rack 34 Slot 1. The + & - buttons you can assign to a register & make them incremental by whatever value. The reset button you would make momentary & have it zero a register. It's not super intuitive, a lot of what I've done is learn by playing around, dumping it into a Roboguide cell & see if it works.

    Thank you.
    I've already got the option for Panel Wizard so I will try to make that work with the flags mapped to UOPs.
    I'm hoping this is doable, after all that's what this option is for!

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