Fanuc Robot paired with Fanuc CNC

I have almost zero experience with either of these controllers yet I have an opportunity to assist with an existing system that was poorly integrated to help improve cycle times and add some functionality.

How difficult is it to learn these two systems? Are they similar with respect to software interfaces? Do they talk to one another seamlessly?

I have designed my own CNC and robot controllers and am competent enough with the 840D and Simotion systems . . . and have experience with Fanuc 90/70 PLCs from 15 years ago. What kind of learning curve am I in for?

I wish I had better feedback for you, but all I've really got us about five months of Fanuc 5-axis robot to Nakamura-Tome STW40 loading experience. The robot is just as irritating as anything else Fanuc. Errors that don't translate well and ten steps to try and clear a loading crash. Good luck!

A Fanuc Robot and controller don't speak to each other, and calling for support to help figure it out will frustrate the heck out of you. Very few machines come with a robotic interface installed, and those that do cost a small fortune.

Fortunately, a Fanuc robot is stupid simple to program in Teach Pendant mode. THE interface to the machine is easily handled if you give the robot control of the show. THe I/O interface is easy to figure out if you have any PLC programming experience. PNS and a few features are a bit more complicated only in htat you have to know the appropriate modules to use or you will never get the proper rack, slot addresses to work. Feel free to give me a shout if you have an issue. You're just across town.

Stu

Hey Stu,

If we get traction (and a PO) from the customer, I'll send you a note and see if we can engage you in a consultative role.

Thanks for the offer of help.

Ken

From what I remember, there was no crossover between the PLCs, robots, and CNC controls, but that was 20 years ago. On the other hand, they haven't updated their CNC controls in those 20 years so I don't know why the robots or PLCs would be any different.

There still isn't a direct crossover, it's just that they have made the interface easier (and typically far more complicated than it needs to) to implement. I still recall my conversations with a machine service tech when I was trying to interface a CNC lathe with a Fanuc Robot. All I really cared about was where the machine brought out the pinouts to cycle start and the chuck clamp/unclamp switch. After being put on hold for half an hour he came back with "you need to press the green button on the front panel for cycle start" No kidding I noted, how about the chuck clamp / unclamp? Another 30 minutes went by and he noted that I had to press the foot switch.... really helpful he was.

Ultimately I simply pigbacked off those switches in parallel, since I never did find out where on an I/O board they came to.

You will have no problem working through a slick interface Ken, I've seen your work.

It's not the guys who have a Fanuc robot loading a mill via a pallet switcher is it? They use a rubber tipped extension on their end effector since whoever installed the robot had no idea what a relay was for (or an I/O point) and they push the physical pallet load and cycle start buttons on the machine with a rubber tipped rod... classic!

Nope a very nice Tsugami Swiss lathe accompanied by a Fanuc robot with I think an R-30iB controller . . . beautiful machine center that had some integration and production decisions that have turned out to be poorly thought out. I can see why they did it the way they did it, but they tried to do too much with the lathe that could be done with secondary operations using simple robot functions and even a few creative off-line things like deburr.

We have another R-30iB controller in house for a painting robot we are working on so anything we learn on this project will help us move forward with the other project as well. The painting robot is mated to a Siemens Simotion controller . . . never any shortage of variety here.

Really depends on whether you have write access to the PMC. When we interfaced to our Fanuc machines we just wrote our own interface into the machine. If the PMC is locked, you are kind of stuck with whatever interface is there. We don't use Fanuc robots, but there really aren't that many signals needed for a lathe if you can write some logic into the machine PMC.