Equipment/Staubli/gdmux

What?

To make good use of the Staubli robot arm we need to write an g-code interpreter to allow non-programmers to use it efficiently, by utilizing off the shelf CAM software.

Challenges

• G-code standards often have tool specific inline variations. E.g. for 3D printint there's E###, which is the rate of extrusion, whereas for CNC applications there's F### which is the spindle speed. The issues arises as the CS7 controller does the motion planning and inverse kinematics, and although the controller has GPIO they are not 5v TTL and have to be controlled with awkward V+ code. The alternative is to intercept the gcode on a separate micro-controller and either proxy the motion only g-code to the controller or alternatively
• Choose whether or not to interpolate arcs as per G03 and G02. i.e. the controller side interpolations would look something along the lines of:

DURATION 0.5 ALWAYS
FOR angle = start TO last STEP angle.step
    x = radius*COS(angle)+x.center
    y = radius*SIN(angle)+y.center
    MOVE TRANS(x, y, 0, 0, 180, 0)
END

Useful links

• g-code refference
• List of cam [www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/CAM| software] and converters from Shapeoko
• CamBam+ - popular,customizable but non-free CAM software package