[Petridish]

I have been working with the developer of C3 Bridge to develop a version of his software to allow me to communicate with an old Win95 version of the the KRC2 controller (The Cross 3 OLE architecture is not compatible with the current kukavarproxy interface)

We have this communicating correctly however I have an issue with the robodk apikuka interface and the release of the C3 Bridge software that I am trying to debug as I am unable to "Get Position" and am struggling to understand what the problem is?

I have tried two methods to get the current position:

1) clicking the "Get Position" button in the connect to robot screen
2) running the robot.Joints() commend from within the robolink python library

when showing the logs in the connect to robot screen I get the following:

192.168.178.85:7000...
Ready
Sending command...
JNTS 0 -90 90 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -nan
Invalid joints
Ready
Sending command...
JNTS 0 -90 90 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -nan
Invalid joints
Ready
Sending command...
Disconnected

On the C3 Bridge log I get the following:
[08/04/09 16:05:35] [INFO] Client <20> connected from '192.168.137.10'.
[08/04/09 16:05:35] [DEBUG] Client <20> WriteVariableAscii: <COM_ACTION> = <0>.
[08/04/09 16:05:35] [DEBUG] Client <20> WriteVariableAscii: <COM_ACTCNT> = <0>.
[08/04/09 16:05:35] [DEBUG] Client <20> ReadVariableAscii: <COM_ACTCNT> = <0>.
[08/04/09 16:05:37] [DEBUG] Client <20> ReadVariableAscii: <$AXIS_ACT> = <{E6AXIS: A1 0.0, A2 -90.00000, A3 90.00000, A4 0.0, A5 0.0, A6 0.0, E1 0.0, E2 0.0, E3 0.0, E4 0.0, E5 0.0, E6 0.0}>.
[08/04/09 16:06:01] [DEBUG] Client <20> ReadVariableAscii: <$AXIS_ACT> = <{E6AXIS: A1 0.0, A2 -90.00000, A3 90.00000, A4 0.0, A5 0.0, A6 0.0, E1 0.0, E2 0.0, E3 0.0, E4 0.0, E5 0.0, E6 0.0}>.
[08/04/09 16:06:08] [INFO] Client <20> disconnected.

Why am I getting an "Invalid joints" message in connect to robot log, have I got a configuration problem?

Is there some additional debugging that I can turn on with the apikuka driver (this would be useful)?

I notice that when I am attempting to run move operations the api is able to workout where the current robot position is even don't have the robodksync542 program running on the controller.

Cheers Ivan

[Dmitry]

Hi Ivan,
I'm the C3 Bridge developer.
We have communicated before via email.
Nice to see you on our forum.
I'm already working on a new driver for RoboDK.
Maybe I'll have time to prepare a beta version during the coming week and we can test it together.
I'll keep you posted.

Best regards,
Dmitry.

[Petridish]

Hi Dmitry,

That's good news, I have been messing (hacking) around with a python version of a driver just so I can understand exactly how this would API operates and how I can communicate between and API and the C3 Bridge or Kukavarproxy depending on the platform that I am using with the underlying kuka robodksync program.

Look forward to working with any beta you develop.

Cheers Ivan

[Dmitry]

It's time to perform the first tests.

PLAN A
I have attached the archive with the new kukabridge driver.
I don't know what version of RoboDK you are using, but I recommend the latest 5.4.3 (64-bit).
Just in case, the 32-bit driver is also in the archive.

All the files from the archive must be unpacked to the folder: C:\RoboDK\api\Robot

Then in the "Connection to KUKA KR <model number>" window click the More options button and choose or write the driver name to be used: kukabridge or kukabridge32 (depending on the architecture of your RoboDK).

   

PLAN B
If something goes wrong (for example, the driver won't work inside RoboDK).
You can run it as a standalone console application. For this, next to the .exe files there is a file kukabridge-start.cmd which you can run.
After starting, the console will be empty (this is normal, the driver is waiting for a command).
Here is a set of commands for the test:

Code:

CONNECT <IP> <Port>
CJNT
MOVJ <A1 Angle> <A2 Angle> <A3 Angle> <A4 Angle> <A5 Angle> <A6 Angle>

My example output:

Code:

CONNECT 192.168.44.128 7000
SMS:Connecting...
Connected
SMS:Working...
SMS:Ready

CJNT
SMS:Working...
JNTS 99.33396 -62.73709 116.17680 191.56420 54.00000 -186.85800 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000
SMS:Ready

MOVJ 90
SMS:Working...
JNTS_MOVING 99.33396 -62.73709 116.17680 191.56420 54.00000 -186.85800 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000
JNTS_MOVING 99.33396 -62.73709 116.17680 191.56420 54.00000 -186.85800 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000
JNTS_MOVING 99.33396 -62.73709 116.17680 191.56420 54.00000 -186.85800 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000
<skipped a lot>
JNTS_MOVING 90.00050 -62.73709 116.17680 191.56420 54.00000 -186.85800 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000
JNTS_MOVING 90.00000 -62.73709 116.17680 191.56420 54.00000 -186.85800 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000
JNTS_MOVING 90.00000 -62.73709 116.17680 191.56420 54.00000 -186.85800 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000
SMS:Ready

[Petridish]

I have been doing a little testing of the kukabridge driver will email you my findings directly Dmitry but its great to see continuing end to end development of the C3 Bridge tool set.

I will post the overall results here once we have worked through a few details offline :-)

Regards Ivan