Simulation Software

Hello, DKirkman.

Motoman Europe released a 90 day trial of MotoSim, but to download it, You should be located within Europe. I don't know if other branches of Motoman had similar offerings.

http://motodownload.azurewebsi…dpage/offline-simulation/

RoboDK is also a good option. The only problem is that isn't designed to upload programs generated externally, e.g., in a real robot or other simulation software. It can do it, but the method isn't officially supported, and I achieved mixed results uploading KUKA programs. Can't tell about Motoman programs.

Read this thread, starts out pretty long time ago but has more current posts.

Simulation / Offline programming softwares

There are several software for offline programing, i have other software that is very proffesional software but it is very expensive.

It is Visual Component software, the base of some offline programs is this software.

Quote from DKirkman

I am a Masters student...

I'm 99.99999999999999% sure you've thought of this but have you tried appealing to the various developers, telling them that you are a student and that the current situation has really put a stick in your spokes? Somebody will be empathetic, I'm sure.

You could try Octopuz, Cenit (Fastsuite 2), Delfoi, ABB (RobotStudio [Hey, shoot for the moon!]), etc etc etc...

We use Octopuz and I know they've been quite generous with temporary licenses when we've needed an additional seat so if you send them a message it's possible they'd hook you up with a temporary key? Could secure them a lifelong fan, so it's worth asking.

FWIW MotoSim is... probably one of the rougher characters in the business, everything I listed above is like driving a porsche over driving a 1989 Chevy Sundance without a safety compared to the proprietary software, aha. With the exception of having the exact controller there, I can't stress enough how mindblowingly convenient that is for accurate simulation. The UI design though... oof.

The folks over at RoboDK seem to be pretty cool with getting people trials, maybe even more than the 30 days. You should make sure that your robot model is supported.

I've been ok with Motosim. I have completed two projects now through the simulator and dumped them into the robot when it arrived and only had to touch up a couple points. Not sure about the other software out there but I've been able to completely manipulate the ladder and dump it in and it works great.

Quote from Noob1982

I've been ok with Motosim. I have completed two projects now through the simulator and dumped them into the robot when it arrived and only had to touch up a couple points. Not sure about the other software out there but I've been able to completely manipulate the ladder and dump it in and it works great.

Honestly, that's its strong suit amongst what I've tried. You're using a 1:1 virtual representation of the controller itself, so generally anything that works on your simulation will work on your IRL cell - hell, I haven't been able to try it yet but I guess you can even connect your controller to MotoSim via your network and not just monitor but send a shortlist of commands to it and run jobs. No other OLP is going to be able to do that with a Motoman robot without breaking a few license agreements, at least not for a while.

My biggest and only gripe with it is the UI. Some of the decisions made, simple things like moving your PoV around just seem to purposely be against every industry standard, go backwards, have baffling settings (why would I ever need a manual control wobble view for programming?) and make it feel like a fight to use, when other OLPs are borderline fun to utilize.

Building a cell is a pain, too - again mostly because of the interface. Documentation and tooltips are borderline nonexistent. But, what I CAN do is load the .jbl i'm working on and modify it in real time and see with virtually perfect precision what will happen out on the floor. The value of that almost outweighs any of the perks that the aftermarket OLPs offer.