Question: Can the UR Ethernet/IP be used to control job calls on Fanuc CNC controller? Trying to verify that a UR Controller is able to be the master for an operator to call up a part number from the UR pendant and not select anything on the CNC software.
The UR Controller acts as an Adapter (slave) over Ethernet IP, so you would either need your CNC controller to have Scanner (master) functionality, or have a separate Scanner device in between to manage the connection.
By ‘separate scanner device in between to manage the connection’ do you mean a network switch/router?
We have a CNC machine that is set up as the ‘adapter’ and need to integrate the UR10E to the machine.
He means an ethernetIP scanner (master) such as a PLC. In many cases, both devices are considered slaves. We have this situation for our welding setup. The welder is an ethernetIP slave, and so is the robot. As such, we have a cheap PLC that we get from Automation Direct (no IO modules, just the CPU) and we perform the mappings between the GP bools/ints/floats/whatever in the UR to the appropriate bits/bytes according to the welder’s ethernetIP object model.
Thanks for the response Eric. I was already considering using an Anybus X Gateway as a master unit in the same way but these are upwards of £800, probably similar in $. Do you have the PLC make/model you use to hand? Might be a cheaper option.