Can not find debugger. How to single-step from the PC ? How about breakpoints ?

Welcome to the forum............

Quote from robotreto

I have 30+ years of experience in Adept/Omron/Staubli programming (V+ and VAL3 languages),

Quote from robotreto

what am I missing ? Is there really no debugger or was I just too dumb to find it ?

Quote from robotreto

Now I came across a Kawasaki Project. I was puzzled to see that AS language is very similar to V+, indeed 90% of the keywords and behavior is identical.

Quote from robotreto

From those systems I am used to have an online-debugger (on the PC) where I can single-step any program and also use breakpoints to pause execution on a specified line. I am also used to be able to inspect the online-contents of local and global variables with the debugger, and also change them online if needed. On V+ system you can even add/delete/modify lines of code online without needing to re-transfer (and therefore re-start the program) from your IDE.

Not that I am going to 'poke' holes in your statements, but you have written lots on one hand, but failed to search on the other.

Simple research into your chosen OEM brand would yield what you require as well as some product training to make sure you're aware about just what a product's capabilities are.

This board on the forum is full of information and links.

Further 'googling' and historical knowledge of going back +50 years to the origins of Industrial Robotics, would also have yielded just how Kawasaki was involved with the origins through Unimate, Puma and Stuabli (regarding VAL programming languages) would have yielded further information in relation to your questions and just how strange someone with 30+ years experience with VAL has never come across Kawasaki before.

Go here and download the various flavours of online editors available in conjunction with an AS Language manual and you will find all you need to use:

Kawasaki Online Terminal Editors - Manuals, Software and Tools for Kawasaki Robots - Robotforum - Support and discussion community for industrial robots and cobots (robot-forum.com)

Do you think I would waste my free time replying to your post and pointing you to irrelevant areas?

There is nothing more I can add to this thread now except the '7 year old post' contains what you need.

They may not be up to your standards, but that is what you have.

If you are not happy about learning how to use any of them, I suggest you contact Kawasaki directly and ask them for further information and training, provide them your feedback or maybe create a perfect debugger yourself and sell it to them.

KRoset has an ONLINE license available whereas KIDE has that included.

These are the closest you will ever get to 'your prefect IDE' and should never be compared with other OEM offerings as you are comparing apples to oranges.

FYI

I use a combination of KRTerm and KRoset for ALL my Kawasaki requirements without any issues.

Quote from robotreto

I have carefully read your reply, but I could not find any answer for my 5 detailed questions.

Instead you refer me to a 7 year old post where a collection of editors and terminal programs are discussed. None of those terminal programs and editors seem to have such a debugging functionality.

In what way does your response not diss or insult me?........Please tell me.

Those applications are exactly what Kawasaki employees and Kawasaki veterans use and answer all your questions or why else would I bother pointing you to them.

Quote from robotreto

There is no need to lecture me or diss me just because I use a robotic forum to ask some questions which are not properly explained in the manuals.

Believe me , I am not lecturing or dissing you at all. (my posts would have been very different indeed)

I am merely pointing out the obvious and if that is how you read my posts, then I can't help that, except to apologise if it came across that way.

You are of course welcome to report any of my posts if you feel I am responding to you inappropriately.

You will not receive any further support from me in the forum, but you are welcome to use the forum for any and all your needs to ask questions and gain from other members free time, experiences and knowledge and then choose how to use that information. (written without malice).

Good luck in your journey into Kawasaki Robotics, I wish you every success.

Quote from robotreto

As nobody in this forum seems to understand the concept of a standard debugger, I got myself a K-Roset license to find out about their debugging functionality

Really?

What a nice thing to say about 56,835 members of the forum.

Many thanks for your 'expert' review of KRoset.

Especially as you have 0 experience and not a Kawasaki hater.

I expect other members will benefit from your review.

I myself will not as your review is formed by your opinion and not by the capabilities of KRoset and KIDE which you have definitely not explored yet as many of your statements are incorrect.

I cannot assist you in anyway, as you are the foremost expert on Kawasaki already.

Do not use this forum to criticise products, what is the point?

Yes, of course it is an open forum designed to host open discussions, ideas, issues but is not a platform to join as a new member and come in like the almighty and push such arrogance onto existing members whom are already conversed and possibly have very successful careers already related to Kawasaki products and are aware with all the positives and negatives AND know more than you.

Yes, I said it, someone out there actually knows more than you about Kawasaki and debugging.

So take your feedback directly to Kawasaki and see how they respond and or take some training.

I would word your comments very differently though, as many areas you talk about are incorrect and you will be very embarrassed when you learn that those comments are incorrect too.

Failing that, if you dislike what is available so much, hire in an expert to undertake your Kawasaki project, then you won't be so disappointed of having to use such crap applications.

Yes, I 100% agree, Kawasaki do not provide a more up to date package.

Kawasaki do not and never had claimed their pendants and interfacing is 'state of the art'.

But as Kawasaki (are not the originator for industrial robotics) but was there to spearhead it into global manufacturing arena (Unimate collaboration), I expect they know what they are doing.

To be honest, you could possibly not have a job/career today if it wasn't for Kawasaki Heavy Industries.

They have released a new generation teach pendant packed with features and this generation is just the start of things to come regarding Kawasaki Robotics development.

But I expect you haven't researched into this before criticising Kawasaki.

May be when you look into this, your comments may change and place you in a spotlight of embarrassment.

Let's see shall we.

Here ends the lecture

Quote from robotreto

- So it is not possible to single-step your programs from the PC

- You need the Pendant and a Terminal, where you have to type STEP for each line.....

- On-The-Fly changes of code is not possible, you have to stop debugger, make code-changes, save them, and freshly restart the simulator and debugger at line 1 of your code.

I just started with a Kawasaki project and face exactly the same problems as you.

(I also have many years of experience with ABBrapid and V+)

I've spent the whole day reading Kawasaki manuals, searching online solutions and trying to work with K-IDE. I'm desperately searching for a way to code/debug through my PC instead of using teach pendant.

Do you have any update or suggestion ?

Quote from robotreto

- Debugging works only in simulation, not with a connected real robot.

- So it is not possible to single-step your programs from the PC

- You need the Pendant and a Terminal, where you have to type STEP for each line.....

- On-The-Fly changes of code is not possible, you have to stop debugger, make code-changes, save them, and freshly restart the simulator and debugger at line 1 of your code.

Maybe it's just me, but have you guys considered that you can do online edits using the EDIT command and make on the fly changes and then continue or just going back a couple of steps. Why start from the beginning?

Also you can start any program on any step number. EG: prime pg0,,40 Primes program 0 at step 40.

Also there is a KRoset license version where you can be connected to a real robot or simply test offline.

Seems to me like you guys could benefit from doing a Kawasaki training course or two. Maybe even spend a couple of hours with an experienced Kawasaki robot integrator to show you the methods and short cuts to commissioning robot code.

Quote from ShAdOwDrAgOnS

Seems to me like you guys could benefit from doing a Kawasaki training course or two

I doubt they will do this, as the claim to have extensive experience with other OEM's usually infer they have a rite of passage to not require any training on other OEM applications and in the next breath to start bashing the product in comparison instead of 'Learning' how to use it.

In the UK we say:

'You can lead the horse to water but you can't make the horse drink'.

Quote from kwakisaki

you guys could benefit from doing a Kawasaki training course or two

Hello Kwakisaki,

Yes - I am trying to arrange a training - it's just not so simple with the agent here in Taiwan.

Currently I use K-IDE and now I'm trying to get K-Roset from the agent.

I already downloaded your Notepad++ and Kterm - thanks a lot - that is very helpful. I already found many useful functions using the terminal

But I was not able to actually move the robot from the terminal ... for example TDRAW 0,0,10

I tried in manual and automatic mode - but the controller always replied that it was not allowed in the current mode .... is that a safety limitation ?

The documentation is only available as PDF ? Because in the PDF the syntax is not bookmarked/indexed - so I can only use the text search and it will always take some time to find certain keywords (Appendix 5 AS Language List only shows the chapter ... no page numbers).

I also didn't find anything about parameters in call instructions ... for example:

CALL wait_sensor(vacuum_sensor, 2)

.PROGRAM wait_sensor(sensor_no,timeout) #0
    i=0
    while SIG(-sensor_no) AND i<timeout*10 DO
        TWAIT 0.1
        i=i+1
    end
.END

Does this work and does the controller use "sensor_no" as local variable in this case ?

And what is the #0 in the .PROGRAM line ?

Sorry for many questions ... I just started ...

Thank you

Quote from TRapp

The documentation is only available as PDF ? Because in the PDF the syntax is not bookmarked/indexed - so I can only use the text search and it will always take some time to find certain keywords (Appendix 5 AS Language List only shows the chapter ... no page numbers).

Correct we all live in the same boat regarding Kawasaki PDF's

Safety circuit set, Repeat Mode, Teach Lock Off, Motor Power then use DO instruction prefixed before your motion command.

Robot speed is automatically ALWAYS approx 250mm/s if I remember correctly.

Quote from TRapp

Does this work and does the controller use "sensor_no" as local variable in this case ?

And what is the #0 in the .PROGRAM line ?

Try it out...........................

No sensor_no is not a local variable, that is global as there is no preceding '.'

Called parameters need to be locals, so change it to .sensor_no.

See section 4.4.2 in the AS Language Manual regarding subroutines and parameters.