Robot or PLC

[rigicon]

Hi everyone,
I have a ABB robot and a Compactlogix PLC. There is a festo linear drive with a camera on it. There is also a fixed camera. The product has 10 lanes and is indexed on a common conveyor.

The robot programmer wants control of the linear drive and both camera's. I the PLC programmer want control of the linear drive and the 2 camera's and I want to tell the robot when to pick and if rejected to pick again this makes the PLC master and will tie up with the recipes etc.

This is the complicated part as product 1 then 2 etc is needed in sequence. If 2 fails on camera 1 then go get another product from 2 but if camera 2 fails then then product 1 is needed again then retest of product 2 etc.
The robot programmer has won but not with out a fight.
What are the forums feelings sequential robot programming ie if on then .. else .. or real time ladder logic...

[504bloke]

From personal expierence i always go the plc side for this sort of thing, mainly for ease of support later down the line.

I have just done a robot retrofit with an obsolete robot and a beckhoff control system with only the runtime, you cant change anything you are stuffed....

At least with the siemens kit i put in for the conveyor etc it can be altered at a later date (look at S5 for examnple or PLC5's)

[jstolaruk]

Same here. I've got several robot (ABB & Fanuc) cells in the works right now and I've designated the PLC as the master. The Robot is programmed as a slave, follows orders to do a task and then wait for the PLC to instruct it to do the next. Much easier debugging on the PLC end.

Of course, the "up" side is that by the robot programmer taking on more responsibility, he has to follow the project longer than you will.

[bkottaras]

Originally Posted by jstolaruk

Same here. I've got several robot (ABB & Fanuc) cells in the works right now and I've designated the PLC as the master. The Robot is programmed as a slave, follows orders to do a task and then wait for the PLC to instruct it to do the next. Much easier debugging on the PLC end.

Of course, the "up" side is that by the robot programmer taking on more responsibility, he has to follow the project longer than you will.

Same here, PLC is the master and initiates Robot tasks and functions.
Upside, since techs do mess with the Robot pendant and such, they cannot screw up anything since desicion making resides on the PLC side.
I also control the Vision systems via PLc logic and desicion making, reject, double pick etc.