I was wondering if you think there will ever be a plan to implement a waypoint offset node for universal robots. That, or if there is a urcap that may be out there. The situation I’m running into a lot is I have a routine that is performed in multiple locations on a pallet. Ideally, I would like to just copy over the entire routine, and then add an offset for how far the new locations is from the first.
I’ve seen multiple suggestions on how to do this. I’ve seen some where they say you can go into the edit pose tab and add the offset yourself, but this would have to be done for every waypoint, and if there are a lot of waypoints in one routine, this can be grueling. I’ve also seen the suggestion for using relative waypoints, but I’ve messed with them quite often and they don’t seem to be as repeatable as I believe they should be. I am also using force detection in many locations where I am having the cobot find a surface, and in doing so, this creates discrepancies that makes relative waypoints virtually useless in my scenario.
I’ve worked with several other machines that have offset capabilities. You’re pretty much just able to select the waypoints you want to add an offset to, and then you can offset the waypoints all at once. As far as I know, there is no way to do this on the current software, and I think many users could find this tool useful.
What you’re describing is the use of “Features.” Unfortunately, if you taught everything to Base, you’re pretty much out of luck, but in the off chance you taught them to a Feature, you can simply apply an offset to the Feature and everything will shift. What’s nice about this is that it can be done programmatically with a pose_add() command, allowing you to shift around at runtime if needed. Or you can just manually edit the Feature in the installation too.
Okay, that makes a lot more sense to me. Question though. You say this adjustment cannot be made if the waypoints are taught referencing the base plane. Would it not be possible to create a new plane that is offset from the base plane? Thanks!
Yes, you can make a Feature be wherever you want. My comment about being unable to shift Base is just that, if you’ve taught all your points to Base, you (most likely) will NOT be able to just select a new Feature and have it work. This has to do with how the kinematics are stored. You can give it a shot, but don’t be surprised if all your points become unreachable when switching to a new Feature. (You can always just reselect Base and it will be fine again.) The only way to “transfer” your points from one Feature to another is to be in the original Feature, jog to the point, switch to the new Feature, reteach the point, switch back to Base, repeat. It’s very time consuming and annoying.