Continuous Axis Speed (R847) - how is this supposed to work?

    Anyone have experience with the option in the title? I've talked to our Sales Rep about it, asked tech support about this option, no solid help yet on figuring this out. We have this setup that customer wants changed to improve cycle times: Robot welds around a pipe 360° + Overlap without having to "rewind" the axis (because of axis limits). We want to find a solution where we can continuously turn. When I try to use the CN_CTS KAREL program with trying various pitch arguments and then having the CTV0 motion instruction on the Weld End, like the manual says to, the positioner does not spin or do anything when the Robot goes from Home, Approach, Weld Start, Weld End, Retreat and back Home. I see the positioner (FANUC 500iD Hollow Positioner) goes from 0 to 180 then from -180 back to 0, but I cannot figure out how to get the robot and positioner to work together.

    I also tried this morning to use the CALIBNBT KAREL program to reset turn counts, but that ticks off DCS parameters because the FANUC 500iD Positioner has known kinematics and I can't seem to go into Controlled Start and set it to Unknown Kinematics (i'm assuming because this is a FANUC positioner and not a basic positioner). So I can't use the CALIBNBT KAREL program either like I thought I might be able to.

    Anyone using this option successfully? It reads like it is supposed to do what we need it to do, but I can't figure out how to get the option to work in programming!

    I've not heard of that option and I can't find any documentation on it. In the past, I have used the continuous turn (J613) option instead.

    Here's an important note about continuous turn:


    Where do those Karel programs come from? Are they specific to welding robots?

    I gathered the information I have from the V9.40 ArcTool manual. V9.30 has the info too. Under Advanced Functions -> Continuous Turn Option. That has the info for CALIBNBT and CN_CTS KAREL programs.

    When I have Continuous Turn Frames enabled, the Positioner's degrees do rotate up to 180 or -180 degrees. After 180° in either direction, the degrees flips the sign.

    I've tried toying with that, setting up a move that only goes to 170° then trying to increment or go to another position that is another 170° away. Still, no positioner rotation happens when I run the program.

    1: J P[1:ZERO] 100% FINE
    2: J P[2:APPR] 100% FINE
    3:
    4:L P[3:WELD PT] 100mm/sec FINE
    5:
    6:LBL[1]
    7:PR[1]=P[3:WELD PT]
    8:PR[GP1:2,1]=P[3:WELD PT]
    9:
    10:PR[GP4:2,1]=PR[GP:1,1]+170
    11:
    12:L PR[1] 250mm/sec FINE
    Weld Start E1[1,1]
    13:L PR[2] WELD SPEED FINE
    Weld End E1[1,1] CTV0
    14:
    15:PR[1]=LPOS
    16:L PR[1] 250mm/sec FINE Tool_Offset,PR[10] //Retreat Position
    17:
    18:JMP LBL[1]

    So, I'm starting at a point, then adding 170 onto the weld end every iteration. DOesn't matter what increment I put in here, the Positioner won't turn as long as I have a CTV0 motion instruction on the Weld End. If I change CTV0 to CTV1, then the positioner will rotate, but the robot will move on up to line 16 and start retreating from the weld while the positioner is spinning. Changing the CTV value from 1 - 100 will vary the point at which the Robot will move on to line 16. The manual reads that CTV should be set to 0 for Continuous Turn to be set active. I only tried values other than 0 to see if I could get the positioner to spin. Sure the positioner spins, but I can't have the robot retreat from the weld before it has welded 360 + overlap.

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