continuous macro operation

[fujisan]

Hi all,

I'm new to FANUC macro programming and wondered wether it is possible to keep a macro running in the background, whilst other NC code is being executed?
What comes closest for me, is to call the macro at every speed changing command, but it's still not exactly what I need.

Does any one know, wether the C language executor can do that? I haven't found a lot of information about it, so I'm not sure what the differences are except using another language.

Thanks a lot for your help!!

[sinha_nsit]

Macro calculations do continue in advance while the preceding NC statement is being executed.

[christinandavid]

Look up info on 'realtime' macro commands, they may suffice - sorry, never used them myself...everytime I try to get my head around them all the Zs make me feel tired

DP

[fujisan]

what are real-time commands? i have the book fanuc cnc custrom macros from peter smid. it has got a few years on its back, so i'm not sure wether it's too old, but i can't find any info in it.

are there any good resources on fanuc macro programming? because also on the net, i couldn't find any.

[christinandavid]

From what I can gather you can use them to interrupt current cycle when a condition is met (don't ask me what the typical use is, but from the examples my guess is probing). The format seems to involve a //Z before the normal phrases, with a distinct notation for the RTM variables used.

Hopefully, someone else can chip in who has actually used them...I don't know how extensively they are used, I only know they are mentioned in my 31i manual.

DP

[psychomill]

It might help for us to know ..... What do you need the macro to run while code is running? What is the macro tracking?

[MysticMonkey]

Can you use the while command and program a while for each condition you might need in a program?

[fujisan]

i want to monitor values as servo/spindle speed, position, load etc. and create a history of the machines usage.

G66 is not that bad, because it can call the macro at every axis moving command, but still it requires each program to include the command to have all data of the machines history

[psychomill]

What machine is this? You would be far better off to look into Data Collection software. This type of software can pull such data from the machine every second it is running or not running and create graphs, history, charts... whatever you want. This is commonly used for what we call OEE.
Then you don't need to write any macros or use up variable to store the data or have to print it out constantly.

Some machine controls monitor this anyway so it's just a matter of you setting up the outputs accordingly.

[fujisan]

thanks for the reply.

its not for a factory machine, but for a research machine. i guess that such a data collection software costs money, right? or is there one freely available?

it would be nice to monitor all data, but its not necessary to save everything. i only need to store a few variables (<10) so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

[BobWarfield]

fujisan, not clear you can monitor everything you want in g-code, but let's assume you can. In other words, if you go through the programming manual for your machine's controller, everything you want to see is accessible either directly (e.g. you know the spindle speed is 6000 rpm because you executed an "S6000") or indirectly via a # system variable.

If you controller has a means of monitoring these variables directly, great. OTOH, a lot of data collection is done using a DPRNT statement in the g-code. You see this for monitoring cycle times or for tool life management, for example.

DPRNT just writes out whatever you want it to via the serial port. You use DNC software that has the ability to collect this information to gather it into a file. You can then analyze the file using Excel, a Basic program, or whatever tool is most convenient.

For example, let's say you want to monitor which programs ran, which tools in the changer where accessed, how long each was accessed, and at what feeds and speeds the tool ran. You can get all that by instrumenting the "O", "S", "F", and "T" words.

What I mean by instrumenting, is you'd go through the g-code and for each of those words you'd add a DPRNT that sends the value out the serial port.

This is not too hard to do with search and replace (well, you'd better have regular expression capability!). But, some g-code editors can do it too. For example, G-Wizard has a "Monitor Revision" that lets you add a particular string to the g-code after a particular word, or a particular word followed by a particular address.

The output might look something like this:

Program O0100
Spindle S6000
Feed F110
Tool T12
...
etc.

Hopefully you can get a timestamp on those entries or output one as part of the DPRNT.

So, that's another way to go about it. Several of the machine data collection software programs are based on this kind of approach.

Best,

BW

[stevo1]

Originally Posted by psychomill This is commonly used for what we call OEE.

Wow.....you don't hear that very often. Operating Equipment Efficiency. We got a new CI guy a few years ago and have been doing this for some time. It is hard to really use the data as the standards for most jobs are not that accurate.

We looked at software like this thru a company called Enet DNC and it was not cheap. I don't know what is out there but this required some additional hardware in the machines.

Stevo