Morning, all. I'm in the middle of figuring out how to change a GM-spec SpotTool robot (v8.22) to do Dispense rather than welding, and set it up for a completely home-made dispenser (this is part of an R&D setup).
Now, I have zero background in DispenseTool, but I've been reading the manual. I built a virtual duplicate of the existing robot in RoboGuide from a backup, and I've succeeded in activating the Dispense option. And the SS, SE, SS_PT, and SE_PT commands all show up when I try to create a test program. I've selected a Gear Meter option for the dispenser system type, as that seems closest to what I need.
But I can't seem to get a GO speed output.
To be clear: this "dispenser" i'm trying to set up is just going to need a GO for the TCP speed -- there's no Gun Open/Close signal, no error signals, no Volume or Style. So right now, my Dispenser I/O only has Flow Command assigned to anything, everything else is just *. I have a 2-point test program that starts with an SS, and ends with an SE, but when I run it, my GO never changes from zero, and I get a SEAL-268 Flow Rate Is zero (E1) message. I'm sure I must be overlooking something basic in the config.
I'm also a little lost in how to actually write a dispensing program. It looks like, for the very simple programs I need to write, it should be as simple as SS and SE commands at the start and stop points, but the manual gets into some very confusing discussions of Job and Process programs, which I have never even heard of before (my Fanuc experience is limited to material handling applications). If I'm understanding the manual correctly, these only come into play for multiple dispensers on the same robot?
So, is there a special trick to writing dispense programs, above and beyond programming SS and SE points?