Shifting points on the Fly

    Hello folks,

    Robot Tech here familiar with Yaskawa robots but our company has brought in some Fanuc robots for new projects and I am now learning the ins and outs of programming those. We have a M710iC that is a material handler loading a piece of equipment. While our Maint and Eng folks work to dial in this equipment, we find the points need to be touched up fairly often. I know in Yaskawa world, we have a feature known as PAM shifting which allows you to adjust points on the Fly without having to shut down your cell. Basically, you add the X,Y or Z value that you want robot to shift in a given job and MOV line and it will update that taught position. Handy if you know exactly where robot needs to move like in our situation. Is this something that Fanuc offers on any of their robots? Is there another feature or method of touchups on the pendant that doesn't involve going in to cell and teaching? This is a unique situation that will hopefully get resolved and points become stable but until then, cycle time is the issue as adjustments are often. Thanx

    Cheers! :top:

    Hard to say without knowing how your cell is programmed. There are several built-ins that could help you out.

    Before you start to consider making any changes, do you know how to make a full file and image backup of your robot? Do you know how to make ASCII backup of your part programs?


    Do you have separate programs for each part type? Could you post a program?

    Hi, i don't know if the option exist like the PAM function on Yaskawa robot. But you can adjust the position with PR offset which take register on argument X, Y, Z. But this way it's a bit dangerous, if you set the wrong value the robot could to hit something in space.

    This is exactly what program adjust is for. You can find it under the UTILITIES Menu.

    You can adjust relative to tool, or user frame.

    Once you type in your adjustments, you have to enable them. The utility will then modify the program with your adjustments. If you save your program out, or clear the schedule, the adjustments will be permanent.

    Check out the Fanuc position converter I wrote here! Now open source!

    Check out my example Fanuc Ethernet/IP Explicit Messaging program here!

    Another thing you could do if all the points need shifted is shift the userframe (if one is being used). Last year I setup a robot loading on and off of a turntable with a separate userframe per side so that long term if the guides get set different I can adjust the userframe for the entire side of the turntable vs retouching all of my points.

    The other thing that has not been said is you could add a PR offset and simply adjust your offset every time an adjustment is needed.

    Just like YakawFabb said adjusting points on the fly is not super safe if a mistake is made especially large mistakes. For instance forgetting or adding a "-" can make huge difference and is a very easy mistake to make...

    We have a utility created by one robotics that allows the setters to shift points in userframe x,y,z only, by 1mm, 5mm or 10mm based on their login. This avoids the crash if they forget the "-" on a very large number as they are only shifting by a small amount.

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