Spindle orientation / Program reset

[dizzypistons]

Good afternoon (or morning, whereever you may be).

I recently acquired a couple of Okuma LNC8 machines. These mahcines are auotmatically loaded with a fanuc robot. The basic sequence of operations is as follows:

(part is machined)
M19 to orient
M91 to open door
At this point the robot goes in, unloads finished part, loads unfinished part and exits the machine
M2

The issue I am having is with the cycle time. I have to 'cycle start' twice in order to reset the program and run the next cycle. The robot looks for the first cycle start when it is clear of the machine, and the second cycle start when in it's home position. I want to be able only have one 'cycle start' command to reset the program and start the next cycle. I have no idea if this is possible.

Thanks, and I apologize if this doesn't make sense, I'm fairly new to some of this stuff.

[broby]

Hey there Dizzy,
Would seem from the first read through that what you desire is not possible with your current setup.
if you try dropping one of the cycle starts, the robot will get out of synch with the machine. Without changing the wiring for the robot IO and also it's programming you are pretty much stuck with the way it is now.
If you get out of synch, things could go wrong real quick, I once had the "boss" hit the reset on a robot and it was then out of synch with the machine... end result was the robot smashing it's way through the door of the LC20 and up against the lower turret.
Not a nice look.
Mind you on the up side, he left the machine alone after that!

[dizzypistons]

Hey Broby, thanks for the repsonse.

I guess I should be a little clearer. I can change the robot sequencing. What I really want is for the robot to exit the machine to a position register which triggers the start of the next machine cycle.

...and I just realized I made a mistake when outlining the program. It should say:

M19
M91
M0
Robot loads/unloads, exits lathe
Cycle start 1
M30
Reset to beginning of program
Robot homes
Cycle start 2
Lathe runs next cycle

What I really want is:
M19
M91
M0 Robot loads/unloads, exits lathe
Lathe ends program, resets, runs next cycle

[OkumaWiz]

I think you can accomplish what you want by having the lathe run a Schedule program. That will allow it to restart the next cycle after completing the first without hitting the cycle start again. This way you could also have it count a certain number of pieces before stopping if desired and you keep your MacMan data and alarm functionality intact.

That being said, how is the robot interfaced with the machine? Are you using Okuma's Robot interface or are you just using an M-code to trigger the robot and waiting for the M-code answer?

I'm hoping you have some sort of communication between the 2 to keep things in sync like broby says...

Best regards,