Teaching a user frame by hand is fine when the part is always in the same place. When it isn’t, you want the robot to find the part with contact stops, skip conditions or a laser sensor, and then build the frame from what it found.
FrameCalc handles the math. It adds a FrameCalc icon to the CRX timeline under Programming > Plugin. Drop it in, point it at the position registers you recorded, and it writes the calculated frame to another PR, ready to use or copy into a user frame:
UFRAME[1]=PR[4]
How it works
- Record the points as PRs ahead of time, taught in
UFRAME[0](WORLD):- Origin: the frame’s origin
- X direction: a point on the +X axis, at least 10 mm from the origin
- Y direction: any point in the +Y half of the XY plane, at least 10 mm from the X axis
- System origin (optional, four-point method): moves the frame’s origin to another point while keeping the orientation from the first three
- Configure the FrameCalc instruction with those PR numbers and the PR to write the result to.
- Each time the instruction runs, it overwrites the output PR with the new frame.
Download FrameCalc
FrameCalc is free. Enter your email address to subscribe to my newsletter and you’ll get the download link, along with occasional emails about FANUC robot programming.
Install
- Copy the IPL file to a USB stick.
- Plug the USB stick into the controller’s
UD1:port. - Make sure the TP is ON.
- Go to
Menu > Plugins > Install. - Accept the EULA and install.
- Cycle power.