Older Robot for palletizer is it worth the trouble

    Hello

    I am thinking this might be a laugh to some . Years ago a friend and my self purchased two robots they are Asea irb 90 robots . The aim was to get one working as bag palletizer the other for spares. My friend was the robotic engineer i am more of a fitter make things etc ok so we got one of the robot going it worked well just using it on teach pen ate i went ahead and made a vacuum head to pick up the bags and thats about as far as we got we both got married and time got away. Since then my friend sadly passed away . So i am wondering is it worth still trying with the older robot or should i go for something newer my biggest concern is that i am not sure that the irb 90 has a palletizer program and dont know how to program it so what do other people think? Please give me your thoughts thanks chris

  • HawkME

    Approved the thread.

    There's three different items here:


    1. The robot. Old robots tend to keep working for a long time, as long as they're taken care of -- rather like old cars. It's the controller that tends to age badly -- that's where both hardware and software tends to advance, and become obsolete, more rapidly. It's not odd to find newer controllers running older robot arms.


    2. Old controllers become harder to find spare parts or software updates for, and harder to find people who remember their particular quirks.


    3. Palletizing software. That's an entire science itself. For simple grid patterns, it's not hard to write your own simple program. But for situations involving complex patterns, automatically-generated motions, and GUIs, you usually have to purchase an option package specific to the generation of controller you're using.

    Thank you for your reply

    I have a lot of spares for this robot a complete controler and another robot for spares . I will have to do some reseach on the palletizing its just a six high stack on a pallet four bags per layer maybe i can work it out .

    thanks chris

    Thanks again

    I am thinking of getting the robot out of its space in the corner of the shed hooking up to controller again and having a fiddle with it im sort of getting inspired .

    chris

    Quote from chrisa

    they are Asea irb 90 robots .


    Quote from SkyeFire

    ABBs are pretty good "programmer's robots". To do simple palletizing, I would recommend looking up how to create and manipulate Work Objects in RAPID. The Offs() function will probably also be handy.

    Think this Asea has a S3 controller, programmed with ARLA, not Rapid. The pendant has a display with two lines dot matrix characters?

    Anyway also those old robots have a palletizing function, the big task will be, to get a documentation for the palletizing function. It is a long time ago, I can't remember the details. :hmmm:

    Thanks Hermann

    I am still thinking of giving it a go as mentioned im not a engineer more a fitter well qualified mechanic .

    I thought it was s2 but i have to think more about it i guess maybe i should just buy a latter model im not sure but i do a lot of manual work bagging seed and are getting older need a another way

    chris

    I still have S2 manuals, albeit paper and not digital. Old fashioned ring binders.

    My irb6 do indeed have a palletising section in the manual. I've never used it, I'm sure there is a button for it on the teach pendant

    Thanks GR

    I think you are right i have a program manual here its scanned onto a disc my friend did it for me i am not sure that its the correct manual i had a quick look and it says select pallet under positioning menu so maybe be on to something

    chris

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