I/O question

tonyatanya

Hi, I have another one for you guys. I am filling cups with a material and moving up in the z direction while its filling. If the program is paused I have the material flow stop so we don't overfill the cups. When I go back to running the program, the robot returns to the original position before the pause, but will not re-engage the output to allow material flow until it finishes the current move command.  How can i re-engage the output to allow material flow at the same place the program is paused? 

matthewd92

The easiest way to do that is to use a background thread.  In the main program you would use a variable to signify you want the flow on.  Then in the thread just monitor for that state and turn the output on or off.

For instance:

local startDispensing = True
moveL(somePosition)
local startDispensing = False

thread Thread_1()
  while (True)
    set(DO0, startDispensing)
    wait(startDispensing != DO0)
  end
end

Just make sure you set the thread to always loop (that is what the while statement above refers to)

This way when the program resumes, the output will not have the same value as the variable and so it will set the output back to the value of the variable.

tonyatanya

Thanks, Ill give that a shot.  

tonyatanya

Hi, I got pulled off this project a while back and am getting back to it. I tried setting the IO up in a thread and had the same results. Basically I am dispensing material while moving up in the z axis. If someone pauses the program in the middle of this z axis move, the output turns off to prevent the material from continuing to flow while in pause. When the program resumes, the z axis move finishes, but the output will not re-engage until the next command is encountered resulting in an improperly filled cup. I explicitly turn the output back on if the pause function is no longer true, but it still does not physically turn on until after it finishes the current move operation. What I am missing?

matthewd92

Can you share the program with us?  That will help determine what is going on. It can even be screen shots if needed.