This has occurred at least twice in the last few months, and i am at a loss for what could be causing it.
Program behavior in and out of STEP mode is completely different, but only rarely.
Occurrence #1: STEP Mode, robot moved as programmed, through the end of a weld, and then into a retreat path. RUN Mode, robot finished weld, then took off close to 90 degrees from the anticipated retreat path, crashing into the part and fixture. This happened a while back, and i do not have any further details at this point.
Occurrence #2: STEP Mode, robot moved as programmed, through the end of a weld, and then into a retreat path. RUN Mode, robot finished weld, then faulted out, reporting a Limit Error on G:1, A:1. G:1,A:1 was at an angle of about -95 degrees both before and after the problem move, and the axis limit is -170 to +170, so well within limit. This occurred today. The weld is an Arc move, the retreat is a J move. I tried replacing the J move with an L move, changing the end type between CNT0, CNT50, CNT100, and FINE, changing move speed, breaking up move, changing angles, adding a wait, and changing the order of the weld termination parameters. Nothing would make it run through the end.
My only remaining suspicion is this. Both times, a technician had been responding to a different issue, and was manually finishing the program. They were not called due to this issue, which indicates to me that the issue did not exist when it was running as normal. Is there anything that could possibly cause this behavior? Has anyone seen something like this before?