Old KR6/2, KRC1

    I am buying a very old KR6/2 (somewhere around 2003?) that should go to scrap metal, I'll find some space in garage and place it there, try to turn it on eventually. It hasn't been used in years, but I'm told it was giving some power errors/warnings before it was decomissioned and put in the storage. It has about 9000 working hours.


    I would like to turn it on and use it as a kuka robot, but if that doesn't work I'd be happy with just using the mechanical unit and make some sort of my own controller. Does anyone have any experience doing that? What hardware problem might make it completely unusable?

    I might also be able to get a KR16 from about the same time, which generally works, but doesn't keep the motor data and needs to be mastered every time. Would it be useful to get it for spare parts for the smaller one? Smaller one seems much more practical to keep in a small garage, I would consider selling the rest of the big one after I get the small one to work.

    What would be ok price to sell that kind of robot for?

    The lose of mastering on power down will be the RDW has come to the end of its like for storing data . Replace the board and the problem is solved. Else just drive to the zero position before powering off. Then on power up dial master

    Quote from the leg

    The lose of mastering on power down will be the RDW has come to the end of its like for storing data . Replace the board and the problem is solved. Else just drive to the zero position before powering off. Then on power up dial master

    I know what needs to be replaced, but that's 1500+ € part to replace, and it's on the bigger robot. I'm more curious about switching all the other parts from the big one to the small one. I have very little experience with kuka and with old robots in general, I just want a toy to play with, and I'm getting it for the price of iron of that weight.

    If that will be the only thing needed in the end to make the robot completely operational I could maybe fix it if I find a buyer, but I don't even know what would be an ok price for that kind of robot?

    And thank you very much for the dial master tip, I could do that if I end up using robot as it is.

    Mmmm... for most KUKAbots of the same generation, it should be possible to swap the RDC between "big" and "small" robots. The generation usually mattered more than the robot size. There are a few oddball robots that break that rule, and there were special cases like the SafeRDC.


    So, first thing would be to open up both robots' RDC boxes, and compare the model numbers, size, and connectors. If those all match, then swapping them should be possible.


    KRCs work by keeping dual parallel copies of certain data (robot model, serial number, hour meter) on both the hard drive and on the RDC's EEPROM. This is intended for situations where one or the other has to be replaced. If you swap parts and boot the robot, you should get an error message that the RDC and hard drive data are in conflict, and you should be given a choice of which is is correct -- that one will overwrite the other.


    Obviously, you should make a full Archive of the robots before trying this, and I would recommend in the STRONGEST possible terms to also make a complete clone of the hard drive before making any changes. Heck, you should clone the HDs anyway, b/c if they fail, your only way to re-install Windows would be if you have the original install CDs, and the CD-ROM drive still works.

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