Simulate I/O or Toggle I/O without stopping program

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Summary

Set I/O to Simulated state, and be able to toggle I/O without stopping program.

What is it?

I would like to be able to set certain inputs to simulated, so I can force them High or Low.

Why is it needed?

It would make fault-finding, developing programs and testing programs much easier.

2 Likes

You can switch to “Simulation” in the bottom right and this will allow you to toggle the input states. The robot won’t move though. Otherwise I often will just take a jumper wire from an output and wire it to an input. That way toggling to output “toggles” the input. If you need to see the robot move, that is

Thank you for your reply and suggestions Eric, unfortunately this is not really the solution I am thinking of.
Sometimes you need to actually see the cobot move, with only some digital inputs being simulated - I get that putting the cobot into simulation mode is a work-around, but it is not a sufficient solution.

Credit for hardwiring the inputs to a high voltage, as this can be a solution - but it is not preferred. It also becomes difficult to do this when working with Ethernet I/P, Profinet etc.

This is something other manufacturers have standard in their software, I do not understand why UR has not implemented this in polyscope yet.

It’s a feature I can see myself using often, as well. :slight_smile:

I agree wholeheartedly that this is a VERY useful feature, coming from a plc background. I have heard this request from multiple customers. We should have a ‘‘toggle’’ as well as ‘‘force’’ input functionality just like a plc.

I 100% agree.

Seeing as most people use Cobots from suppliers who also make Industrial robots, this sort of feature is a no-brainer.
There are so many ‘industrial’ features on other cobot controllers which UR does not have, which makes me wonder if it really isn’t just better to go with the ‘Big names’ instead.