If anyone is familiar with ABB IRC5, there are system inputs that will allow the controller to load robot programs into the active task from its own internal hard drive. I have previously used this on jobs that have thousands of points per part in order to minimize the disk space in the current task. When the operator selects a certain job, the PLC will signal the robot to load that part's series of programs. I am trying to do something similar with Kuka. The R1 file has hundreds of robot programs in it and there is not enough space, however if there was a way to only load the needed program at the time, this would solve the issue without having to reprogram the entire job. Does anyone know of a way that this can be done, whether it be from within the Kuka's memory or an external source?
Loading Kuka Programs from Hard Drive
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Ahiers -
October 5, 2023 at 8:08 PM -
Thread is Unresolved
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HawkME
October 5, 2023 at 8:34 PM Approved the thread. -
Yes, depending on the KSS version your KRC is running.
The bad news is, it's a paid option from KUKA, called Directory Loader. It's not quite as "clean" to use as the ABB memory-swapping commands, but it does work. This is the only way to automatically remove and add KRL program modules from the /R1 directory, as it gets tangled with the compile/link cycle.
Some more roll-your-own solutions are possible, again depending on your KSS version. KSS 8.x supports reading/writing raw text files, and it's possible to create, for example, a single KRL program containing a huge array of positions, and rewrite the array from the data in a text file.
Or, if your KRC has the EKI option, the data could be sent over a TCP/IP network connection.
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not too impressed with Directory Loader...
but one can move files between KRC: and hdd manually - just log as Expert and move files manually. The other option is to write custom solution.
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