Polling user for CNC material thickness

  • Kuka KRC4 8.3:

    I am doing cnc operations and have built a wasteboard table to support the wood to be machined. I have setup my table top BASE and want to add the material thickness to offset this base so creating a "Material Top" Base. The material thickness will vary so I would like to poll the user for material thickness information. How can I create an input for this measurement within the program? Is it done through messages?

    Thanks,

    Jeff

  • With regular KRL, You can create a message box with more than one option (button1, button2, button3, etc).


    But I don't remember if is possible to invoke an input box or something like this.


    If you have a limited array of thickness, I think You could preset some buttons with their values.


    Or You can prompt the user to input a value on a variable in every cycle start, for example.

  • entering decimla value can be risky, specially if it is base. once wrong decimal place and this is going to be bad.

    KRL supports Dialog which supports up to 7 buttons. this may need some creativity to produce keypad equivalent but it is possible.

    another option is to use Variable Ovierview, however this need to be manually selected by user which adds unwanted number of steps.

    one can also get optional software such as smart input box from OrangeApps

    finally one can also go for HMI options (easyHMI from KUKA for example)

    1) read pinned topic: READ FIRST...

    2) if you have an issue with robot, post question in the correct forum section... do NOT contact me directly

    3) read 1 and 2

  • Setting numerical values through the basic KUKA interface is a bit of a pain. I created an example dial-a-setting module that used the Dialog messages and 7 user buttons to achieve the desired result. It's a bit clunky, but works, and could be modified to do floating-point values without too much trouble.


    The other option (without adding Tech Packages) would be to use the VarCor (probably not a great idea) or the ConfigMon screen.


    Of course, whatever method you use, you'll definitely need some robust limit checking in your program to make sure someone doesn't input meters when they intended millimeters....

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