Pretty much all of the robots I am responsible for suffer from recurring chain failure. I've never understood why and just accepted it as normal operation. But I was thinking yesterday and something finally occurred to me. There are 4 pairs of safety circuits that are jumpered out when a new robot arrives - ESTOP, Fence, Servo ON/OFF, and Servo Disconnect . In most, if not all of my work cells, I am only using 4 of these for my ESTOP and fence circuits. I leave the other circuits shorted at the TBOP connector.
I'm going to test it to be sure, but this MUST be the reason for the chain failure, correct? Do all of these circuits have to open/close within the specified amount of time, or are the individual + and - pairs subject to their own specific open/close window?
It starts making less sense to me the more I think and write about it, so I'm just gonna go try to test it. If anyone wants to chime in, feel free...