I am working with a Fanuc R-2000iA robot with an R-J3iB controller running software version 6.3140. Very old software but it has been running reliably for many years for a critical application that cannot afford any downtime so the approach has always been, if it ain't broke.... We have made minor changes to the TP files and positioning but we are now needing to make a change to the core operations.
The controller runs a TCP Server Socket Messaging program at start up and I send it simple string commands from a PC which are then pushed out to the various TP files for robot operation. We have all code and all TP files but the compiled TCPServ program is currently a black box. I have all the string commands and I know how to populate the correct registers to get the TP files to function properly but we are in need of re-writing or creating a new Socket Messaging Server program.
I do not believe this to be too difficult from a coding standpoint as I can start from Fanuc Socket Messaging Server example program and then insert the necessary code to read the incoming string form the PC and then update registers and the like.
The problem:
RoboGuide v8 or v9 will not allow me to load Robot Image 6.3140 (claims required Windows Vista or older) and then I went down a very long and dark rabbit hole of creating Virtual Machines of four different Windows OS versions and trying to install RoboGuide there but the new versions of RoboGuide won't install on old versions of windows. Erf. Fanuc tech support claims to not be able to provide RoboGuide versions older than v8 and I believe I am now stuck in a situation where I need an old version of a Robot Image but there is not a combination of version of RoboGuide and Windows that supports this.
My client is very reluctant (as am I) to update the robot controller as 0.0% downtime is a necessity. Changing out server files is low risk as it is literally just changing out the old startup program for a new one and reverting back is easily done.
I was able to create a sample Karel file from the Socket Messaging server example and I am able to get this to compile successfully using command line ktrans (from /ProgramFiles/Fanuc/WinOLPC/bin) but I am concerned with the versioning and potential incompatibilties.
Sample code found here in section 12.6.3 (Page 16)
Removed link to fanuc copyrighted material
Can anyone shed any light on difficulty I may have with using a PC file compiled using ktrans (RoboGuide v9) and pushing this PC file onto my controller that is running controller software from 2 decades ago? Or should I be okay because I am only to use this Karel code to read an incoming string, parse the string to registers, populate 3 registers (at which point a TP program running in parallel looks for register values to execute the appropriate TP programs to perform moves)? Nothing more complicated than that and maybe checking status.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated....Thanks in advance....
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