Buying a Kawasaki zx200s with missing cables

    Turns out the Ethernet cable going from the inside of the cabinet to the outside was not allowing it to work, I bypassed the cable plugged directly into the board and now it can connect, any advice on taking backups I’m connected to krterm messing with it right now with my friend.

    I got it powered up and got it to jog around zeroed it out etc your right I need to do more reading. Been studying it. Just is a lot to take on Ive been living in a 3axis world and we all gotta start somewhere. I am having a odd issue I have been having from the start. Sometimes the robot when powered up especially after sitting it will get stuck at the Kawasaki boot screen. I fixed it previously by turning it on and off a bunch of times, now that seemed to stop working and I am stuck at the Kawasaki boot screen. It’s not a issue once it’s been on and running seems like only when the machine is cold? Maybe a relay? Normally when it starts good I here some fans power on sounds like it’s a jet engine taking off not when it get stuck.

    Other then the not starting issue, I also have a issue with recording steps when ever I try it states Gun of CC is not servo weld gun. Can’t find much in the manual about this, I tried setting all the setting in the aux to 0. I think it’s keeping it from creating a step because it still thinks it has the servo gun. Any way to bypass or disable it? Thanks

    Okay so I solved all of the servo gun issues did a initialize again selected 999 this time to bring it back to factory zrobot to select factory setting, was able to write steps. Once I set the robot to repeat I have a mismatch of safety circuit fence condition failure I checked the manual it lead me to 1kp board and stated I need to check the io manual for further circuit. Do you have the io manual or know what circuit I should be looking for to bypass? I’m also starting to think too that my other failure could be caused by 1kp board slowly failing maybe why it has problems when it’s first turned on. But I will just leave it running for now overnight. :smiling_face:

    Okay so my robot has been running good, ive done alot of messing around with it teaching it basic programs and smashing beer cans after hours, appreciate the help getting it going... Id like to set it up to mig weld, My idea is to just hook the switch on the welding gun to a output signal and fabricate my own mounts to hold the gun. not the best way to do it but I think would work. What do you recommend is the best way to program it? basically so it stays slow and consistent when welding the bead. seems like block teaching is more for picking and placing.

    How are you going to inform the Robot that a fault exists in the MIG weld power source?

    How are going to inform the MIG weld power source the robot is in error to cut weld demand?

    How are you going to inform the robot an arc has been created and monitor current is flowing?

    How are you going to control the feed wire rate during speed adjustment periods?

    How are you going to control V and A requests to the MIG weld power source during the welds?

    Maybe ok for arc spots but to create quality welds, you may find it troublesome to achieve, maybe not impossible but depends on just what you intend to weld....

    I was not planning to do any of that, If there's a error in the source the robot can just keep running. I understand this is not the best way to do it, the best way to do it would be to buy a new robot set up to do this.... My robot has the io boards to weld I dont know to much about it maybe i can plug in a robot welding supply maybe I am wrong.... I have some old regular welding power supplys around my shop with separate wire feeders I could mount on the back of the arm and machine a tool holder to hold the gun. I will pre set the wire feed speed and amperage to what i am welding, really I never mess with it to much when im welding by hand aslong as the material is similar thickness. I just need to figure out how to program the robot to drive to the position where it will start welding, give a output signal to a relay to turn on the welding gun. follow along a predetermined weld path at a predetermined speed. then turn off the welder gun and move to the next spot. I am not concerned to much about detecting errors, or changing wire speed and amperage thats all a luxury and if im making the same part over and over Im sure I could work out the bugs. If you have a better idea to remain in a reasonable budget please let me know, maybe I am better off fixing painting and selling my army of kawasakis and trade in for a already set up welding cell. The reach of the zx200s is pretty sweet though.

    Please don't let my comments suede you from your target...... :love24:

    I tend to look at things from a 'perfect world' scenario, hence the 'how are you going to' comments.

    As you describe with some trade offs, then you should be able to accomplish some straight forward linear welds.

    Dedicated arc weld systems do not employ variable accuracies, so as you are not too concerned with feed wire rates and V/A demands, then the bonus is you should be able to dial the robot in with speed and accuracy adjustments should you require to weld some radius points.

    Good to hear you've got her up and running though, at least you have a working system you can further develop. :applaus:

    Whether you use BLOCK or AS will be irrespective, all depends on your taste buds really.

    So literally you will have program topology of:

    - Move to weld start.

    - Turn on relay for trigger of weld set.

    - Move to weld end.

    - Turn off relay for trigger of weld set.

    If you have standard 1GW digital IO, then it's just a case of wiring a relay up to one of the outputs for the trigger control.

    From memory, you may also have a couple of IO available at the arm end, as I recall the 1KP board has a bank of relays which are connected to an XSOL connector inside the controller which brings them out on X5 and are then available through X5A at the arm side.

    Also a couple of inputs provided via the 1KB made available through X3 and are then available through X3A at the arm side.

    If you look on the arm side, beneath the covers, these signals are usually piped to:

    - X108, X109, X113 for the outputs..

    - XFG CN9 for the inputs.

    You would be better cross referencing the troubleshooting manual for these and also referring to 1KB as there are small dipswitches on the board to set the inputs.

    So you could employ some signals there to allow you to drive the feed wire motor if required.

    Be interested how you get on, so please keep us updated, would be good to see a video clip of it if you manage to get it all singing and dancing again........ :top:

    Thanks kwakasaki I’m sure I will have a lot more questions as the project progresses and for that I am extremely grateful you are a member of this community. For now I will leave you with a little film I created, it’s a little unprofessional and does not quite meet the etiquette of the forum little dangerous and abusive on my 50k hour robot but you may enjoy it. Enjoy…

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    Hey so after doing a lot of research and some planning I have a couple questions. Do you think it’s viable to convert a robot to a arc welding robot? Would I be able to update the firmware/buy a weld controller board if I don’t have one. Seems there’s a lot to be desired in the arc welding firmware. I’m not sure how I would program it to make it weave otherwise. I really like these robots because of the size, but if this is just a big waste of time and in the end I’m left with a robot that can’t weld id be disappointed. I had a good month so I’m able to raise the budget a little for the project and was looking at buying a purpose built used robot welding power supply vs converting a old Miller cp-200 to be mounted to the end and using the io signal to basically replace the trigger of the mig gun. My concern here is that I’m going to do all this work and it will be extremely difficult to program. What variables does the robot work with when arc welding? How smart are the robots? Can they increase wire speed voltage and distance from part automatically to optimize the weld?

    Quote from tomcat955

    Hey so after doing a lot of research and some planning I have a couple questions. Do you think it’s viable to convert a robot to a arc welding robot?

    AFAIK Kawasaki did not produce arc welding firmware for ZX Series arms on C controller.

    All I know that on C controller they produced the FA Series arms (which were FS Arms) upto I think upto FA10 (10Kg paylaod).

    This means the firmware was only available for that series of arm.

    So ZX series never had any arc welding firmware available for it.

    However, you should really contact Kawasaki directly about this, as they may have produced compatible firmware for higher payload rated arms.

    If you purchased an FA, RA,BA Series system, then they have ALL the capabilities built in such as connecting to weld power sources and wire feed units, controller V, A and wire speed etc as they are dedicated arc welding systems.

    Its actually a d series control but i think im still stuck in the same boat of no firmware, well i have 2 c controllers aswell but those robots need to be messed with to get running. I reached out to Kawasaki waiting to here back im going to assume I will be out of luck there. Really the issue im having here is I dont know how to control the machine fluidly, I can pick a set of points for the robot to drive along and set the speed with my 1-10 option, but it stops and takes a pause in-between each step. how do I control the movement speed more accurately and keep it from stopping at each point. , is there a way to define a pattern? I was hoping that the arc welding firmware would be better set up for it and solve these issues. Im really not to worried about changing voltage and wire speed... I think worst comes to worst if I was welding different thicknesses of metal together I could set the program to stop before the next weld so I could change the wire speed and voltage manually. Id really like to continue with this project, it would be amazing to have robots in my shop and the coolest thing ever just feel kind of frustrated, but maybe the robot can do these things and I'm just ignorant. Would learning AS programming solve this or is there a way to easily do it on the teach pendant.

    Like I said AFAIK Arc welding firmware was never released for those series or arms as arc welding is usually applicable to small reach and low payload arms.

    Maybe Kawasaki did some 'development firmware back in the day, but I never came across any.

    Only just recently have they released arc weld firmware for higher payload robots, but this is incompatible to C and D controllers.

    You need a training course buddy, as what you are asking here on the forum is all fundamental stuff covered in the most basic of training courses and to keep addressing these areas on the forum is no substitute.

    So I suggest you read the operational manuals regarding BLOCK programming that your using as ALL of what you ask regarding stopping at each point is in that manual.

    AS Programming is code language based which gives you more complexed, flexible and powerful instructions over BLOCK, but again, with AS you can achieve what you have written.

    ACCURACY and CP SWITCH

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