Robot Retrofit

I'm looking for opinions on retrofitting a 3-axis gantry robot. Currently the controller is Keba (codesys system out of Austria), talking to 3 Rexroth Indradrive Cs servo drives via SERCOS III.

The story goes that we can't get good service from our integrator and we can't find an alternative, so we're looking at swapping the control system. The robot will be picking up off a fixed point on a conveyor and stacking a part in an array, or picking off the stack and putting back on the line, basically a pick and place storage system.

I don't have very much experience working with motion systems, just the little I learned in college, so looking for something that is easy to work with for both a controller and a teach pendant. I know support is always a huge factor, we have good support from the big 3 (AB, Siemens, Omron) but am really looking for opinions on other options people have experience with. Any input would be appreciated.

I re read your post and I guess this isn't an answer to your question, but we have several AB kinetix running with ControlLogix ... These things have been in operation daily for probably 15 - 20 years.

we had some sort of a grounding problem years ago that caused the drives to lose track of the encoders, which AB eventually solved.

other than that we haven't NEEDED any support.


that might be the best support of all

If the drives are good, ask KEBA the programsources, and what service do you need, as many companys talk in codesys.
(sorry to far away but i trust somebody in canada will read this post

Yeah I would go with another Codesys based system. The code should roughly translate right over.

If you go w/ AB, you will have to rewrite everything from scratch.

Depending on how well it works now that could be good or bad.

Yaskawa Sigma 5s with MP2300IEC controller.

Also PLC_Open based so some code should be reusable.