FANUC Robot Software Options. With more than 250 software functions for enhanced intelligence, motion, safety and productivity, we give you the power to make your robots see, feel, learn and keep you safe. FANUC robot software products include dedicated functions, simple to use interfaces and exclusive features to simplify and standardize robot. FANUC offers an easy way to command and configure a robot from a PC using their PC Developer's Kit ( PCDK ).The kit allows a PC to access variables, registers, IO, programs, positions, and alarms on the robot. Most of the help documentation already covers Visual Basic, so I'll explain how to get started with C#. How to Convert Fanuc.TP. It requires a purchased software option called ASCII. Offline Editing With Fanuc LS Files; How to Convert Fanuc. Free fanuc programming software download. Photo & Graphics tools downloads - CNC-SIMULATOR by BULLDOG DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES and many more programs are available for instant and free download.
What is an .LS file?
The .LS file extension is the same as a text file. It can be opened in notepad on Windows and similar text editors. The Benefit of saving your programs in the .LS format rather than the .TP format is that you can edit the program on the PC or even your phone and you won’t have to touch the robot. This is something that can be done naturally with Motoman robots but with Fanuc the .TP files still reign supreme.
Converting your existing .TP programs to .LS
Converting the Fanuc Robot .TP (or Teach Pendant) files to text (or .LS file) is very simple; however, be aware that not all Fanuc robots will have the ability to do so. It requires a purchased software option called ASCII Upload and it can run you $500 or more. The .LS files are KAREL listing files that break down the KAREL commands into single line statements much like what is viewed on the TP when programming.
Although, if you already have WinOLPC or a version of Roboguide on your PC then you can create a software version of your robot with that option and convert everything in the software. (Example of option in software below)
Once you get your files loaded on the new robot controller you created then you can just click on the “Teach” menu and click “Save All Programs” as .LS type.
To do the same thing using the physical robot controller just follow the steps in the video below.
If you are the type of person that would prefer to write your programs by hand, that process can be done easily and then uploaded to a robot with ASCII Upload. You will need a title block and code something like the following example. I recommend converting a program to .LS first and the using it as a template.
/PROG SAFEHOME Macro
/ATTR
OWNER = MNEDITOR;
COMMENT = “Move Home Safely”;
PROG_SIZE = 2590;
CREATE = DATE 07-08-09 TIME 09:49:11;
MODIFIED = DATE 15-03-27 TIME 18:57:16;
FILE_NAME = ;
VERSION = 0;
LINE_COUNT = 160;
MEMORY_SIZE = 3078;
PROTECT = READ_WRITE;
TCD: STACK_SIZE = 0,
TASK_PRIORITY = 50,
TIME_SLICE = 0,
BUSY_LAMP_OFF = 0,
ABORT_REQUEST = 0,
PAUSE_REQUEST = 0;
DEFAULT_GROUP = 1,*,*,*,*;
CONTROL_CODE = 00000000 00000000;
/MN
1: !//////////////// ;
2: !SAFEHOME ;
3: !Edited by J Holmes ;
4: !THE ROBOT GUY LLC ;
5: !3/27/2015 ;
6: !//////////////// ;
7: UFRAME_NUM=0 ;
8: UTOOL_NUM=0 ;
9: ;
/POS
/END
All of the data before the line numbers start are very important. It tells the robot all the information about the program so it knows how to handle it. Once you get a good block setup on a TXT file you can add code into it. You will need to understand some basic code syntax first though. The basic task of movement will look like the below example. As you will notice, it looks like as if you were looking at the teach pendent with the exception that it has semi-colons to indicate the end of the command line.
79:J PR[8] 5% FINE ;
80:L PR[10] 100mm/sec CNT50 ;
81:L P[1] 250mm/sec CNT50 ;
Have some fun with this. Let me know if you have any questions or want to share your own code and experiences. For help specifically with the KAREL programming language you can use this link here.
FANUC’s TP programming language and the teach pendant’s built-in editorare great tools. They allow relatively novice programmers to get up andrunning very quickly. Teach a couple points, throw in a couple labelsand IF statements, and you’re off to the races. However, anyone who’stried to do anything a bit more complex quickly realizes how cumbersomeprogramming on the teach pendant is. Navigating through multiple levelsof menus to find the PAYLOAD instruction or creating an extensivemixed-logic conditional is really painful. At this point manyprogrammers switch to programming .LS files by hand.
Here’s the smallest program you can load onto a robot:
However, it might be good practice to start with a template thatincludes all available sections:
The /PROG section simply accepts the name of your program (letters,numbers and underscores only, and it must start with a letter) followedby an optional sub-type (e.g. Macro, Cond, etc.).
Fanuc Tp Program Editor
The /ATTR section stores the rest of the program header information:things like the creation date, comment, group mask, etc. If you choosenot to include any of this, the robot assumes a sensible set ofdefaults.
I’m not sure what /MN stands for (motion?), but this is where yourprogram goes. You must start each line with a : and end it with a ;.You can optionally include a line number before the colon, but I thinkincluding line numbers in your source code is a tragedy.
At this point there’s no good way of populating the /POS section ofyour program. I generally upload my program to the robot, teach thepoint, then use the robot web page to view the program source andcopy/paste the position data after positions are taught. Maybe I’llwrite something better someday.
Fanuc Tp Editor Software Reviews
Getting the Files to Your Robot
Unfortunately FANUC decided to squeeze an additional $500 out ofanyone who needs to do any real programming. The robot will nottranslate your ASCII *.LS files into binary .TP files unless youpurchase the ASCII Upload option.
If you’re lucky enough to have a ROBOGUIDE license, you can side-stepthe ASCII Upload option by having your virtual robot translate them foryou.
Here’s a simple Windows Batch file and FTP script that will upload all.LS files located in ./src to the virtual robot on 127.0.0.2and then download the .TP files into ./bin:
Note: keep an eye on your virtual robot’s error log or the FTP outputto see if any files failed to translate. Also make sure your thecurrently selected program on your virtual does not to be translated.(Abort all then select another program.)
You might write another batch file to then upload files to your realrobot at 192.168.1.101:
Note: Again, the robot won’t load a file if that file is currentlyselected on the teach pendant. (Abort all, select another program)
“I Wish I Had Used TP+”
That’s what I said to myself last week while trying to find a rare bughidden within 15000 lines of TP code. The bug ended up being a simpletypo… something like this:
Can you spot the issue? Here’s how it looks after translating andloading the file onto the controller:
I meant to use R[2:numreg two] in both conditionals, but Iaccidentally changed the 2 to a 3 while hastily changing the otherexpressions. The translator ignores the comment completely, so you haveno idea your code doesn’t work until you test it.
This can be particularly catastrophic when using positions and positionregisters. Tell the robot to move to P[10:position one] when you meantP[1:position one] could be pretty bad. Gotta be careful whenprogramming by hand.
TP+ to the Rescue
Here’s how this program might look if written with TP+:
Of course you can still make typos, but I think it’s a lot harder tomis-type names than numbers. The translator will catch it if you typenmrg_one instead of numreg_one.
Interested?
I introduced TP+ back in January.There’s a demo where you can try it out.
I used TP+ exclusively on my most recent machine tending project, and itwas really refreshing. A single environment file holds all variables fornumeric registers, position registers, I/O, etc. Namespaces allow me toorganize data and I/O into logical groups independent of the robot datanumbering.
Fanuc Tp Editor Software Download
Let’s say you have to move DI[1] to DI[56] for some reason, and this inputis used in 100 programs. Simply update the variable definition in theenvironment file, re-translate and all the programs are instantlyup-to-date.
I’ll release a standalone version of TP+ eventually. Let me know ifyou’re interested and I might get it done sooner rather than later.