KUKA EXPERT PROGRAMMING WITH LOOPS AND SHIFTS

On the first glance I do not see anything wrong in your program apart its name being named *.txt. For a program you need to call it whatever.src.

Quote from deadlyrefuge

I also haven't figured out how to shift either.

What type of shift in what reference frame: tool or base system.

To create a expert module just create a standard module from the template and start entering your KRL code from there. Just do not use the menue entries to teach your motions and other instructions. So just do not use inline forms. But you can mix expert code (plain krl) and non expert code (inline forms) freely in any program module. Think of inline forms just as macros that can be added and edited by the hmi menues but whats actually created by these macros is plain krl you just do not have to type yourself.

Quote from deadlyrefuge

Right now, if I could use the motoman I would, so far the programming seems way more user friendly.

Really. I programmed motoman once and did find it totally unintuitive. 🤣

Quote from deadlyrefuge

I try to copy more that 2 lines of code and paste it, it will disappear.

Did you open your program with select (program interpretation running) or open (just like a file in an editor without running interpreter) button? If a program is selected only oneline commands can be entered. If you need for example loops those consist of 2 lines ( loop and endloop line). For this you need to open file. Or by any change you bought a vkrc not a krc? This is a totally different beast regarding programming.

Fubini

Have a closer look to the for next loop

INT N

...

FOR N=1 TO 4 STEP 1

;DO SOMETHING

; N=N+1 NOT NEEDED you increment in With the FOR Statement

ENDFOR

Shifting is done with the colon operator.

You can f. e. shift the base by

Base_data[1] = base_data[1] : {X 100,Y 0, Z 0,A 0, B 0,C 0}

Trust me, KRL code makes sense, but it's very UNIX-like -- lots of power, lots of options, but very little hand-holding from the operating system.

Getting a free copy of OrangeEdit would help you.

One thing to understand is that KRL is a single programming language, but the menu-driven (Inline Forms) programming on the pendant adds a bunch of cruft that, to the robot interpreter are just comments, but to the pendant HMI control how the code appears, and how it interacts with the menus.

Simple example: code folding. ;FOLD and ;ENDFOLD are just comments as far as the KRL interpreter is concerned, but the pendant display 'hides' anything between them unless you use the menu option to Open the Fold. Any command generated using Inline Forms generates extra "cruft" that you can see if you open the program in a text editor. OrangeEdit allows you to switch between HMI Mode and ASCII Mode, which should help illustrate this.

Quote from hermann

Shifting is done with the colon operator.

You can f. e. shift the base by

Base_data[1] = base_data[1] : {X 100,Y 0, Z 0,A 0, B 0,C 0}

To expand on this, the colon is called the Geometric Operator in KRL. It basically "multiplies" one FRAME type variable (which in this case includes any Cartesian value in KRL, POS, E6POS, Tools, Bases, etc) by another. It's the only way to do rotational shifts correctly (unless you want to write matrix functions).

The order is vital.

POS1 = POS1 : {X 0,Y 0,Z 100,A 0,B 0,C 0} will shift POS1 along it's own Z+ axis by 100mm, even if POS1 is rotated at some bizarre angle relative to the active Base. Think of it as being a Tool Relative motion calculation (I don't know what Motoman calls those).

For situations where you want to shift relative to a defined Base (palletizing, for instance), you would do:

$BASE = BASE_DATA[1] : {X 0,Y 0,Z 100,A 0,B 0,C 0}

PTP POS1

PTP POS2

PTP .....

This would set the active Base to Base 1, but shifted 100mm along Base 1's Z+. And every point executed after would be shifted the same way, until you changed $BASE.

If you're using points programmed on the pendant using the menus, each motion actually contains a bunch of extra code to set the Base and Tool on the fly, so you'd want to change the stored BASE_DATA[x] values. Generally, you teach your path in the un-shifted Base (let's say Base 1), then use another Base as a "scratchpad" to hold the shifted values (let's use Base 2). So:

BASE_DATA[2] = BASE_DATA[1] : {X 0,Y 0,Z 100,A 0, B 0, C 0}

PTP POS 1

PTP POS2

Rules for the Geometric Operator: both sides must have all the values filled in. So {Z 100} is not legal (although certain other commands will accept it). The system variable $NULLFRAME is handy here:

DECL FRAME MyShiftFrame

MyShiftFrame = $NULLFRAME

MyShiftFrame.Z = 100

$BASE = BASE_DATA[1] : MyShiftFrame does the same thing as the earlier example.

If you're creating a program in "raw" KRL, with plain PTP and LIN commands and none of the extra user-interface stuff generated by the HMI menus, then you can set $BASE once and forget about it until you need to change it.

BASE_DATA[2] = {X 2222.546,Y 57.559,Z 1201.456,A 0.0,B 0.0,C 0.0}

BASE_DATA[3] = {X 2222.546,Y 57.559,Z 1201.456,A 0.0,B 0.0,C 0.0}

BASE_DATA[3]=BASE_DATA[2]: {X 0,Y 0,Z 100,A 0,B 0,C 0}

Use '0' (zero) instead if 'O' Letter O like Oskar.

Hermann is right (as always)

Quote from deadlyrefuge

BASE_DATA[3]=BASE_DATA[2]: {X O,Y O,Z 100,A 0,B 0,C 0}

Can you see the difference between X and Y values compared with A, B and C)?

BTW: this is also the reason why on passports numbers they are never using vocals

values inside aggregate need to be literals (hardcoded values). KSS sees "O" instead of "0" so it thinks that you are trying to use variable which of course is not allowed

BASE_DATA[2] = {FRAME: X 2222.546,Y 57.559,Z 1201.456,A 0.0,B 0.0,C O.O}

Also in this line there is 'C O.O' instead of 'C 0.0'.

Variable named 'O.O' ?? Oh no, just a typo

Set a message after each loop is one option.

Display variable either single or overview would also work just fine. You most likely want to declare the variable as global and change the name to something that will not be as generic and prone to namespace collisions or overlap.

If you only want to do a certain number of loops just use either for, repeat until or a while loop instead of an endless loop-endloop

message programming is KSS dependent (KSS 5.5+ is different from previous versions)

on KSS8.x there is a MsgLib() that makes basic message programming easier. this could be also used on KSS5.5 and 5.6.

try

DECL INT n

FOR n=1 to 5
  ;do something
  MsgNotify("Robot just completed cycle number %1","PANIC",n)
ENDFOR

most likely attention to details...

and you still did not state your KSS version. please check pinned topic READ FIRST. it tells you how to determine software stand and what to include when asking for help.

are you sure that MsgLib is present on your system? as stated this is only included in newer KSS versions (8.x). the older KSS do not include MsgLib but if they are recent enough (5.5+), they could still make use of it but - you need to obtain it from some newer KSS and load it onto that robot yourself.

the alternative is to to use programming instructions for your KSS version and write own code that does the same thing.