Long story short
We have a Trumpf welding robot from 2014 with a KCP2 ED05 00-130-547 where the most used buttons are almost worn out.
Contacting Trumpf the reply is more or less just buy a new robot, and KUKA wanted somewhere around 17.000 euro for a replacement.
Looking at eBay I can see that you can buy a new membrane for less than a 100 euro or a complete pendant at around 3.000 euro so we are looking into getting a local electronics consultant to help out instead.
#1 It seems like the pendant is "only" a screen and keyboard/mouse and doesnt store any data, would that assumption be correct ?
#2 Would it be possible to buy a new KCP2 and simply replace the old without any software/firmware install ?
#3 Or could you simply buy a new membrane open up the old KCP and replace the worn out ?
#4 The cable on our machine goes through a wall full of sensors, so simply unplugging it in the "correct" end is out of the question, but looking at pictures of repairs online it looks like the kcp can be opened up from the back and unplugged without any soldering or otherwise, what does the expert think.