Hi,
I am wondering if there is an internal bit somewhere that is active when a robot is at a standstill, IE: servos on, program running, at a position, but not moving. Maybe something in the specific output area that I can map to the PLC?
Reason being, I am trying to measure some weld lengths. I already have arc established mapped to the PLC, as well I am moving the weld speed into an output group and reading that in the PLC (this is just moving a constant into an output group, so not reading speed directly as I don't think there's a way to do this, but it works mostly).
Problem is during a crater fill at the end of the weld, depending on the fill time, the robot could be sitting there not moving, just crater filling for 0.2-1.0 seconds. Obviously the arc is still established, so in the PLC, I am still counting this as movement when it shouldn't be. IE I am using the speed that I sent and the arc established to calculate distance. Problem is during crater fill it is not really moving so my calculations will be off (I know that the crater fill will make the weld a bit longer as material is being deposited, but it's not adding to the length as much as if the robot was still moving)
So I am looking for some kind of built in signal from the robot to say it is currently moving, or not moving. Is there anything for this built in that I can map to the PLC? If I had this, I could change the speed variable in the PLC to be a lower value during crater fill and thus have more accurate calculations for length.