FANUC R-50iA topic

Can't say until I have a chance to try one out. But it sure looks interesting.

Will be interesting to see how it rolls out. A language like Python would be very nice for complex calculations or processing arrays of data. Doing that in TP is very slow and ugly. As long as it has good support for online trouble shooting and editing. If it's another black box like Karel then I will be disappointed, but since Python is an interpreted language then there's no reason that it couldn't support online monitor/edit.

It'll also depend on whether the Python support is a paid option or not. The biggest headaches with KAREL have always been that it's pay-to-play, and requires RoboGuide to write and compile KAREL before deploying to the robot.

A lot of the major KAREL users have wanted it precisely for it's black-box nature, though (including Fanuc themselves). I wonder if Fanuc will try to create a similar box for Python, or just leave it wide open.

Python performance will also be a question. Python is great, but it's never been a very performant language. Recent changes have improved that, and added multi-thread support, but I have to wonder how much of those improvements Fanuc might implement.

Then there's the issue of how Python would interact with TP code. Will it be possible to call a Python routine on the fly while the robot moves from Point A to Point B, and have it execute in the background in a timely fashion? Or will Python routines be completely standalone and only triggered by setting certain Registers/Outputs, and return values the same way?

Hello ikalus1988 ,

May I know the source for this ? Are the 50iA manuals released?

Thanks and Regards

Anand