Why are my gripper fingers slowing down?

Mschack

So I have made a program that utilizes the Robotiq 2-Finger Grippers. At some point during my program, the gripper fingers will only open and close very slowly and will do that forever until I restart the program. It will still run, but it runs slower. What could be causing this reduction in speed and how to I fix it?

Thanks,

Matt 

David_Levasseur

Hello @Mschack, I have opened a support ticket to help you with that. I will post the solution here later when I figure it out.

ssandberg

I have the same issue, the gripper will run fine for a while and then seem to run at 20% speed with much less force (set for 100% on both). I'm using mine with a wrist camera with the latest firmware (just released to fix light on continuously during first pic).

Was this ever resolved?

P.S. Using with UR5 on latest firmware. Solid blue indicator light on gripper.

mhowe

I had the same problem as well

David_Levasseur

@ssandberg , @mhowe , Typically, this issue is caused by a communication drop between the camera and the gripper. We will release a new vision URCap shortly and we hope it will fix this issue. In our lab, it has significantly improved the stability of the communication. If you guys, or anyone who has a similar issue, want to be part of the beta testing program for this release, please let me know and I will add you to the list.

mhowe

@David_Levasseur sure I will take part in the beta testing.

ssandberg

David_Levasseur said:

@ssandberg , @mhowe , Typically, this issue is caused by a communication drop between the camera and the gripper. We will release a new vision URCap shortly and we hope it will fix this issue. In our lab, it has significantly improved the stability of the communication. If you guys, or anyone who has a similar issue, want to be part of the beta testing program for this release, please let me know and I will add you to the list.

 I'm very interested in this, please let me know as soon as this is available.  Occasionally the camera has some very long delays as well, could the communication issue also cause that?

Just for testing, I tried replacing the cable on the camera and that didn't seem to help. I am also running a fair amount of threads with one of them containing quite a few modbus reads and writes. I don't know if that would affect the communication to the  robotiq products as well.

Mschack

Hey Guys,

I had Robotiq send me a spacer adapter that separated the communication between the Camera and the Gripper. Now there are two separate cords, one for the camera and one for the gripper. 

I think the power to the gripper and the communication with the camera interfere with each other. Separating them with this spacer adapter improved camera speed and gripper speed and it also seemed to remove the little bugs I was having with the grippers. I would urge you to contact Robotiq to request this adapter. Unfortunately, I didn't keep any of the packaging so I do not know what the part number was.

If you get this adapter you WILL have to update the TCP, just extending it further from the end of the arm by the thickness of the adapter. That and a little bit of IO work and I was up and running in a couple hours. 

Let me know if you have any other questions,

Matt

David_Levasseur

Thanks for this input @Mschack . As a matter of fact, separating the communication on two different channels can significantly improve the communication stability and speed for both products. The parts I sent to you are the 2-Finger gripper's coupling (AGC-CPL-062-002) along with the 10 meter cable (CBL-COM-2065-10-HF) and its USB adapter (ACC-ADT-USB-RS485). You also need longer screws (Low Head Cap Screws-M6-30mm) and the tool plate to cover the camera recess (RWC-TOOL-062) in order to mount the coupling on the camera. However, this is considered a temporary fix and will no longer be provided at no cost. I rather suggest updating to the latest vision URCap as soon as it is released. As mentioned before, anyone interested can be a beta tester. The beta testing phase will begin soon so make sure to let me know if you want to be part of it.

ssandberg

Hi David,

I was wondering if you had a status update on the software fix for the gripper / camera issue?

Dany Nolet

Dear @ssandberg, can you please confirm me on your "Installation - Camera - Dashboard" panel, what are the versions of URCap, Vision server & Camera Firmware?

We have been working a lot on this issue with our suppliers and I just want to make sure you have all the same components that work flawlessly in house in heavy testing since we made the changes.

Thanks in advance

ssandberg

Hello @dnolet,

Here is what I'm running:

URCap version 1.2.3
Server version 1.2.1-r01, 1.2.1)
Firmware version CQ0-xxxx-beta0    'xxxx' is unreadable

Unfortunately the picture I took of the dashboard has a light bloom on the firmware version but I believe it was the latest that had the light fix (LED light stayed on after first pic).

-Steve

ssandberg

Just to update this thread, it looks like much of our problem was due to an unfiltered AC drive causing communications issues. Since we have installed a reactor on the drive input, the communictions have been rock solid. I would like to thank everyone for their help and suggestions. The cable separation did improve cycle time quite a bit in our case. Most times we are not as sensitive to cycle times but in this case we needed every second we could get.

-Steve