Turning a broken 2 ton robot into a CNC-machine | ABB IRB6400
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- Опубліковано 14 чер 2024
- Here's an overview of the project I've been working on for the past few months: resurrecting this 2 ton cast iron beast from the dead and turning it into a CNC milling machine, mainly for foam.
The robot is an ABB IRB6400 / 2.4-200, manufactured in 1999.
The documents that were still with the robot state that the original customer was the Eurostar train factory located in Austria, where it served as a welding robot.
Upon the first startup attempt the controller wouldn't perform a cold start and gave me : "Error 03:07003 Unexpected interrupt on MC". After talking to some experts on the ABB robotics forum (thank you graemepaulin for your expertise) they pointed me in the right direction and told me to replace the main or robot computer. Replacing the Robot computer fixed te issue and the S4C controller was able to perform a cold start. I then installed Robotware OS 3.1 and after this i was able to get some movement out of the robot. Once the axis were callibrated again (because the backup battery inside the robot itself also died) i was able to make linear moves and start creating simple programs. Full thread on the ABB Robotics forum can be found here: forums.robotstudio.com/discus...
Furthermore I replaced both backup batteries inside the S4C controller and swapped the Floppy drive for a USB one.
This whole process to get the robot up and running took about 2 weeks (had to wait for some parts to arrive). The rest of the time was spend on the development of a program to send coordinates directly to the S4C controller from a PC. Even with the floppy drive swapped for a USB one, the internal memory size was still about the size of a floppy disk (1.4mb). Which means I was still only able to execute programs of max 1.4mb or around 15.000 lines of code. Anyone who ever worked with CNC-machines know that even the simplest programs exceed 15.000 lines. So that's why i made the application. I'm now able to execute any file size that I need.
During the development of the program I used an Arduino Mega as an emulator for the S4C controller, to test out the serial communication protocols and handshakes.
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More info about this project can be found here:
bbprojects.technology/blogs/p...
and here:
hackaday.io/project/190511-tu...
The Rapid2Serial program shown at 05:04 can be purchased from my website: bbprojects.technology/collect...
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:15 Transportation
00:30 Cleaning
00:52 First startup attempt
01:18 Fixing the robot
01:50 First movements
02:12 First program
02:38 Can test full program
03:01 Testing of repeatability
03:40 G-code to Rapid
03:54 3D-printed motor mount
04:10 TCP setup test
04:38 First milling test
05:04 Rapid2Serial Application
05:47 Fine tuning
06:32 Tesla Roadster wheel front
07:19 Tesla Roadster wheel back
08:07 Showcase
08:21 Outro
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Music credit:
Outro song: Sustainable Dignity by Catalyst Belgium
Link to the video: • CATALYST - Sustainable...
Link to their channel: / @catalystbelgium2626 Their website: catalystbelgium.com/
For use and licensing of this song, please contact Catalyst Belgium.
Song: Joakim Karud - Classic (Vlog No Copyright Music)
Music provided by Vlog No Copyright Music.
Video Link: • Joakim Karud - Classic... - Наука та технологія
Prachtig Brian! Geweldig wat je er allemaal mee kan doen! Ook zeer goede Outro muziek!
Bedankt Catalyst Belgium, de outro muziek is geweldig 😜👍
Amazing accuracy. Great job updating the computer. I feel like this machine could produce much larger sculptures than any CNC machine.
Than ANY cnc machine? No. The reach of the arm isn't crazy huge but it is a good size.
@@bc8010 Not any machine, but it can certainly do work on much larger objects than any similarly sized CNC machine, since the object doesn't have to fit _inside_ the machine.
@@ska042 not to mention, give it a rotary table and it basically becomes a 5+ axis machine, since it can reach all angles easily that way.
@@ariginsberg4029 nothing a rotary table might fix ;3
That may be the cleanest used robotic arm I've ever seen after that wash you gave it. Love it. Can't wait to see it get dirty again.
I find it strange that you encounter so many dirty robots.
@@TJ-W they are mostly used in factories/assembly lines so not rly
@@MrAsddasdasda uhhh… that doesn’t apply to my comment. Thanks.
I love the IRB6400! I spent so much time working on these and the older S4 and S4C controllers. We didn't have the USB function, and we had to get really creative when writing our programs to optimize them for space. Great work on this! As always be safe! These robots have the ability to get up to 6m/s! 😵
It's an amazing machine 😁. will do so, haven't gone above 150mm/s yet and milling usually happens at 30-40mm/s so not that much speed but you'll never know with these machines of course.
@@BrianBrockenyeah be careful that thing doesn’t whip around and clock you in the face outta nowhere
@@BrianBrocken how did you manage to get one ? how cheap does it get second hand ?
These were run for 24hrs before shipping.
One, went wild and threw it's dummy weight over 100ft, and right through a concrete block wall.
Just FYI 😉
@@PAFFO 10.000 € and up depending on condition / configuration
You gave this robot a second life, that's great! It's so precise, can't believe its repeatability is so fine!
Once upon a time, I've designed and made my own desktop cnc mill - I've implemented my university graduation work 10 years after I finished my study. It was an interesting experience.
Best regards, Max.
This is so cool! My first job after university was ABB robotics and I developed the SW controlling the electrical drives for the S4C controller. However, the IRB6000 (later rebranded to 6400 when relaunched with the S4 controller) was designed for spotwelding and outperformed all competition for 1 inch, 2 inch and 5 inch movements between spots. The main challenge was the compact gear boxes with natural frequency far below the frequency of the spotweld moves. Just cutting EPS is a simple job for this great machine!
That's a great story, thanks for sharing😁. Love hearing the stories of people who helped developing these awesome machines 👍.
This would be PERFECT for making fiberglass molds! In the yacht industry we have massive 5-axis CNCs that we only cut dense foam on to create a "plug" the plug is then sanded and polished to a mirror finish (with high build primer "duratech"). Then we wax the plug, spray with gel coat, and spray chop strand fiberglass on. From there you lay up additional layers of fiberglass, and once you've pulled the foam and fiberglass apart you have a mold! The foam you cut here is standard styrofoam or what we call 1lb foam. We cut 10lb and 40lb foam as well. For the biggest parts we use the 1lb foam, and do a rough cut (undersized by 1/4") with a huge endmill, then we apply a layer of thick 2 part epoxy putty to the rough cut foam, then we use a smaller ball endmill to do the finish pass.
You have an awesome opportunity to start making sweet carbon or fiberglass parts!
Adding a 7th axis (linear track for the robot to move along) gives you a lot of scope for such things. Some yacht builders (there are also specialist plug makers) are doing exactly that using robots.
Isn't 40lb foam incredibly expensive to buy. And I assume heavy. I'm in the process of saving up for a cnc machine to make foam plugs. A robot arm would be killer because of its massive z axis
@@crazyg74 Believe it or not is not all that helpful. Because with a mold you’re still constrained by draft so the part can actually release from the mold.
I knew those robots were strong, but I didn't realize how fucking accurate they were! That repeatability test was .0006 for all my Inch people. That's a lot for a dedicated cnc machine on linear guide ways and with ball screws, but with a big dangly arm like that?!? That is amazing.
It’s almost as if the thing was designed and built for accuracy and repeatability in industrial applications.
Tool Center Point: This is simply AMAZING....look at that thing go, with such precision!! WOW!
Congrats to your new pet. train it well and dont forget to feed em.
Its really impressive, how accurate these large robots can be.
will certainly do so, thanks for the advice ;-)
That tool centre point is so satisfying
Seeing TCP working for the first time must have been such an incredible day.
Jesus that is one behemoth of a contraption, awesome video.
Thanks man 😉👍
Dude this is epic! Can't wait to see more!
Thanks man 😁
In Fusion 360 if you haven't, I would look at the smoothing feature within most toolpaths. It limits point density in the program. Makes it easier for slower controllers to keep up with the program. I would do a test with smoothing off and smoothing on set to a value that you deem reasonable and compare the cycle times.
Yes i have experimented with this feature and it reduces the files size by a lot. Also changed the default resolution from 0.1mm to 1mm which is also a huge improvement and barely noticeable on the larger parts, might turn even turn it up for larger parts. I also set the lead in and lead out distances to 0.0, these are arcs and arcs have a lot of points so this is also a huge improvement.
@@BrianBrocken can you break a file into parts?
I used to work at Jaguar Land Rover and would sometimes walk through the body shop just to marvel at the ABBs in action.
Bringing back some fun memories at ABB in New Berlin and Auburn Hills from 20 plus years ago ...
That's what was used at my old workplace (Automobile industry) to machine the cockpits of cars. Literally robots like this (just a bit smaller) who could machine all around the part, just in all axes :))
Dito、epic。Something emotional about sprucing up a retired beast of a robot and bringing it back into service。No doubt its much more capable than we think。
Wow that's great, so silent! A rotary table for the work bed might be nice.Very impressive!
Thanks man, that would indeed be nice 😉👍
Good to see the old VB WinForms getting some love in Visual Studio.
Wow, easily the coolest thing I’ve seen on YT this year! Congrats on scoring it and mad props for getting it running again!
(And holy moly, 16 *micron* repeatability?!? What kind of encoders does it have? (Even with the encoder on the input shaft and a high ratio on the harmonic drive, it seems insane to me that it can have that level of precision out at the end of the arm, after going through all the joints. Crazy tech!)
(And I have no need whatever for such a thing let alone space to put it but I’m still intensely envious 😁)
Thank you very much 😁 i tested the repeatability by going to a far point, making sure all axis moved, and then returning to the test point. Did this about 15 times and 0.016 was the difference between the min and max. I also have no idea how they did this, I occasionally design and 3D-print different type of actuators myself and even getting it to mm level is very hard. Hats of to ABB for making something like this 😉👍
36000 lines encoder is pretty normal stuff, 10x interpolation gives 360000, 360/360000 => 0.001°, which is about 0.017mm/m, about the accuracy that thing has.
Also largely depends on whether it's like a knee joint or fully extended in rotation, with knee joint nearly straight, very little change in distance vs encoder angle.
Put like a Haimer probe on that thing and test full 3D repeatability ;-)
Or ball bar test, put like a ball bearing on a table like in 4:35 and dial indicator into the robot and look for circular error
ABB uses analog resolvers to determine motor shaft angles. The signals from each resolver are evaluated by the Serial Measurement Board (SMB). The SMB also counts motor revolutions and sends the data to the motion controller. This calculates lots of stuff to compensate for mechanical things like flexing or vibration of the robot arm, so you can hit the bulls eye at low speed as well as full throttle.
Hi Brian, superb show case of how we can give new purpose to these old machines! We did sort of the same for a irb6400r200-2.8 s4c controller. We’re in the mids of turning it into a large format 3D printer. If you need some info contact me. I can explain more in detail wich components we used for storage and battery upgrades. Also we would love to come in contact with like minded people from around the globe! Regards Marcel
Hey Marcel, thank you for your comment. Would love to get in touch with you. You can send me an email with your information. Email adres can be found on my UA-cam channel or my website (see description of this video).
Plz make videos about the machines
Hi, me and a friend recently became the owners of two IRB6600 robots with IRC5 controllers. We are both finishing our engineering degrees this year so we put the robots in storage for time being but we plan on restoring and recommissioning them early next year. We are still a bit unsure about a few things and we have a lot to learn. It would be nice to be in contact with people who have experience and who would be eager to answer a question now and then. Would you please let me know how I can get in contact with you if you don’t mind.
I have an irb 6400 with an s4c+ controller that I am trying to 3d print with. I would love to connect and see how you are doing it. I have not gotten much past getting the thing running yet.
Inverse kinematics... are just amazing
Nice work, good to see an old beast get a second life!
Crazy ingenious ! the proof that recycling is possible
Very nice video, I have to say I thought a robot arm of this size would of been louder, it's very impressive how silent it is. Nice precision as well, I assume all the joints/gears are harmonic?
Thanks man, I was also surprised by the sound (or rather lack of it) it made. You can barely hear it when standing next to it. Yes the gearboxes used in this robot are harmonic. This robot inspired me to design and 3D-print a harmonic drive, just to understand it a bit better 😜 ua-cam.com/video/1jqYdFrZqFI/v-deo.html
ABB robots really are silent!
Fanuc on the other end not so much
@@SetKat-Alex That's really interesting, thanks for the info, I never get to be around robots, i've actually always wondered which ones are louder and quieter. I have some (somewhat affordable) harmonic drives that are FOC driven BLDC motors and they are surprisingly quiet, actually dead silent, it's always impressed me.
do they make more noise when running at full speed ? like a welder (but not including the welder its self) ?
@@maxgood42 at full speed, you can only hear the motor drive, but not the reducer at all.
We tested an IRB 460 with a 25kg box (that's nothing for the robot), at full speed and 2g Accel, it really is silent. (i think we only heard the controller fans, as tbe door was open).
Maybe I'll post a video of the testings if I've some time.
Awesome, the accuracy is impressive to say the robots probably got quit a few thousand hours of use previously. I worked and installed large industrial laser cutting machines back in 2000’s , LDV /BYSRONIC , kinda lost touch now but think it’s nice to know there’s people like yourself having a go . 🇬🇧👍. Lots of respect
Yes thats so cool! And i love the fact, that you wrote your own Application.
I love it as if it were an innocent pet or something. My heart is full of love
Like using a tractor to do surgery
Hahahhahahaha, that's a really good analogy.
Yes and no, weight wise the analogy is great but a tractor doesn't have sub-millimeter accuracy like a robot arm!
@@CoolAsFreya I meant in terms of overdoing task at hand, and its capabilities. Not about precision.
Simple 3D mill with couple nema 17 and aluminium extrusions would cut this foam just as easily.
Hell, even a 3D printed robotic arm would do the trick and cost 10 times less at least.
@@zonemyparkour they may just be using foam for testing and may use other materials later. There is a very good chance that a 3D printed robot arm won’t be as precise as this unless you spend a lot on proper gearboxes but you still have to deal with the arm flexing.
@@zonemyparkour true but I don’t believe the hole point of that video is to make the cheapest and easiest way.
In my opinion it’s to show that he get it running and can program the Maschine.
He can use that Maschine for things much more than a 3d printed home mad arme is capable.
Looks incredibly useful for large scale mockups!
Two of those on each side of an old tank and you have yourself your personal own (Half-) Mech :-) Awesome work!
You have just become the most envied and hated CNC garage hobbyist in history.
My knee-jerk reaction is "I WANT ONE!!!"
This is a great project! Much respect! Since I work a lot with CNC machines, I would consider this robot good enough for softer materials. With metal on the other hand you could likely run into problems with shattering.
Bro this is a dream project for me. Absolutely sick!
das ist unglaublich cool! Du bist ein echter Tüftler thumbs up!!!
A CNC mill is dandy, but this has the accuracy to become an EDM machine!
Engineers are Magicians!
Watching this remind me to Kobelco welding robot that are used in company where I work, they keep working during lunch break😆
Great job! Can't wait to see this in 5 axis machining
What a beautiful machine, truly
Netjes hoor!! Gaaf om te zien.
Admirable skills. Hat off. You give that huge robot a second life, another brain. Thank you for entertaining us and... of course instructing us as well Brian. I subscribed to your wonderful channel
Thank you very much Philibert 😁👍
Awesome project and nice work creating your own software to generate your G-code and stream it. Inspirational work!
The 6400 series are built like a tank. I programmed and operated 2 of these at work since 2000. They ran at 3-4 meters/second lifting up to 90 pound parts 24 hours per day, 7 days per week with little issues. The would pace parts on a machine spindle with +/- .0025" accuracy. The motion sensitivity makes them relatively safe to work around, and they have welding software for oscillation. We used Schunk grippers on ours.
It would be great if i could have access to such a robot... It can do so many things... New ones are.... quite expensive.. Great work Brian!!!
Nice project! The 6400 are very nice robots! :)
Awesome. I've always wanted to acquire a giant robot arm, but I'm also respectfully afraid of its raw power.
Leuke video weer Brian :)
Ik heb gezien dat je je eigen website hebt, echt heel mooi! Ziet er super professioneel uit!
Merci man 😁👍
This so cool, I can think of many possibilities with one of these
Amazing work!
That is awesome, those are dangerous machines!
The way it dead stops at 4:30 looks eactly like the video froze. Very cool
You've got a gem there.
This is the kind of stuff I want to have in my backyard
Mate, that is the bollocks. Skills. 👌
Man, I would love to see how the hell you even program this thing. what a machine!
A wet dream of every architecture graduate :o
Years back i had the chance to get a smaller ABB arm for about 500$. I always wanted to turn one into a 3d printer.
I would give my right arm for one of these. Thanks for sharing. Thumbs up.
The entire concept of Skynet coming out of some US military program
is ridiculous. This is how Skynet took it's first tentative steps towards
extinguishing all human life. And I get to say, I was there at the beginning.
I hope your proud of yourself.
I am really tempted as one of our auto manufacturers have closed down and there are a few of these on the market...
That robot seems in really good condition, we have one very similar at work, in production since 1998.
There is a between step Z0 instead of fine or z1.
Z1 might round some corners, z0 should not, but neither stop at the point like fine.
Nice job with the program conversion !!
Thanks for the tip, i also found Z0 in the documentation but didn't find it on the controller, it goes from Z1 to fine, no Z0 in between.
@@BrianBrocken Maybe it's only available since S4C+ but you can build your own! Declare a variable of type zonedata in program with a zone like 0.001mm. It's self-explanatory on the teach pendent. Or you edit the BASE.SYS and add something like "CONST zonedata z0 := [FALSE, 0.001, 0.001, 1, 0.001, 1, 0.1];"
Een knap staaltje techniek ... proficiat met dit project 👏
Merci Ronny 😜
A man cave with arcade cabinets and f*king functioning robotic arm. Now i have seen everything.
Yeah, those don't work unfortunately (yet). Bought them at the auction for 50 euro. One has a fried EPROM and the other is missing some boards. These are the projects for when I have a lot of spare time (won't happen very soon😬)
Amazing stuff!
Nice work. Cool tool to have access to. 👍
I bought an old VMC with a punched tape reader. It also had a serial port so I wrote a drip feeder that looks surprisingly similar to yours. But I too had the issue where the controller would only take one command at a time so it had no ability to "merge" the path between commands so it would execute every line of code and stop then start processing the next line. Never did figure out how to fix it or if it was even fixable. Sadly I had to sell it at a loss. Great machine.
That's unfortunate that you had to sell it 😕.
Old Swedish but god quality machine.
I used to install, maintain and program these robots. ABB was the easiest brand to work with.
In INDIA also their is ABB Robot manufacturing plant.
🕉️🇮🇳❤️💪
Insane project
This is so amazing!!!
That is so cool!
Subscribed, which is a bad idea.
I have a complete Fanuc M16i RJ3 cell that I bought with a project like this in mind. I decided to part it out when I realized much work the project would be. But maybe...
Tolle Arbeit.👍🏻
I like the jump shot at :47
Where you transferred the grime from the robot too the floor....
.
wow, its amazing, tks for sharing
This is incredible!
Superior Swiss quality 😍🇨🇭ABB
Good job Brian! It's hard to understand from a 8 minute video how much work you put into it. Was it easy? Do you have all the knowledge? How long time did it take. I also assume that a computer for an ABB robot is not cheap. Nice to see and looking forward to see more usecases. 🙂👍
Thanks man. The previous video i made was released 6 months ago so that's about how long this project took to make (and it's still far from being finished). You'll never have all the knowledge, i think I just skimmed the top of the iceberg 😉, and you can find about anything on Ebay these days 😜.
Cool stuff. I started out using a Motoman SK arm that still used floppy and serial communication. But I remember the user interface (forget what the term was) was really intuitive.
it is just a matter of time till we start seeing the first battlemechs
Seriously cool I would love one!
quiet a work my friend ! 🔨
Wauw, dat is dus echt super cool!
i love this video
keep going, great job
Thanks man ;-)
Love the "rescue" robot project. Every guys shop ought to have one! Lol!
Awesome job!
Very impressive .
God this is amazing work !!!!
Thank you 👍
I’m subbing in hopes for more of this robot. My dream is an ABB or KUKA cnc router just like this.
Like using a "finely tuned" bat to kill a mosquito. Very nice 🙂
Great stuff!
Reminded me of those videos of stray dogs/cats that get rehabilitated and look and act happy again...
amazing
Total cost? I've always wanted a kuka arm. Something about the complex movement and all the joints makes them feel organic and alive when they move autonomously.
If you are in South Africa I have some and I'm willing to full maintenance lease at R7500.00 per month :)
I can't believe I just watched a 2-ton robot arm carrying out an intricate task with such precision that it makes me writing my name freehand with a pen look like a Neanderthal using a rock! UGG!!! BASH!!! UGG!!! 😳 😄👍
That is also a very good description for my handwriting 😂
Very nice
Amazing how much cutting foam sounds like stick welding.