Hello! 
I’m new to using the UR5e and I’ve been trying to program the robot arm to move. Occasionally, whenever the robot arm is approaching a dangerous position, I would immediately press the emergency stop button on the teach pendant. I sometimes press the button a couple times a day.
Is this bad for the robot arm? Thank you so much in advance for your help!
I’m sure the button is rated for a certain number of cycles but there are definitely some alternatives you can explore as well.
- Wire up a stop button to the stop input on the robot controller (NO contact 12v → stop input)
- Define some safety planes set to trigger reduced mode when the robot tool or elbow moves across the boundary (Set your reduced mode speed really slow so you have a chance to press stop)
In a learning environment, a basic stop input or, better yet, an external estop could be wired in.
These dangerous situations you’re trying to avoid; are they dangerous to a person? the robot? or just things not going to plan?
If your safety settings are still setup for force and speed limiting, you can probably stop the robot just by pushing the wrist or EOAT.
@terryc Thank you for the tips! Is there a YouTube video of someone doing the wiring step-by-step?
@WattsUp Thank you for the tips! Sorry for using the word “dangerous.” Nothing dangerous is actually occurring; there are just bounds that I don’t want the robot to cross. I was asking because every time I press the button, the brakes on the robot is engaged. And then I would have to release the brakes again. I was wondering if engaging/releasing the brakes multiple times a day would wear out the brakes?
Ok perfect! If there is no real ‘danger’ then i would recommend you look into other stop options.
E-stop can be hard on robots, and there is no reason to put that strain on the system.
Maybe break your program up with Waits or utilize the breakpoint feature during your testing.
Touch the line numbers of your program and it will insert a break point. The robot will run until that line, then pause.
you then hit the continue running button at the bottom and it will pick up from there.
This will let you confirm motions one section at a time
What I do in these kind of situations is I keep one finger on the speedslider and as soon as I get close to a “dangerous” situation I slow down and eventually move it to 0% so the robot stops. After that you can press Pause or Stop to pause or stop the program.
you could slow it down in the program so approaches is slower and you have time to hit pause on the screen.
if you don`t use the shared parameters in the waypoint, then you can slow it down .