Motoman Commands

The Motoman robot controller initiates all data communication between itself and an In-Sight vision system, whether sending data and commands or receiving data. Communication between In-Sight and a Motoman controller is accomplished using a two-command procedure initiated from the controller.

To Send a Command or Data From the Robot Controller to an In-Sight Vision System

Four Motoman SAVEV commands are used:

  • The first SAVEV specifies the index of the Motoman variable containing the command.
  • The second SAVEV specifies the command number, and the cell address if required.
  • The third SAVEV specifies the index of the Motoman variable containing the parameter for the command.
  • The fourth SAVEV specifies the parameter to append to the command number.

To Retrieve Data From an In-Sight Vision System to the Robot Controller

Three Motoman SAVEV commands followed immediately by a LOADV command are used:

  • The first SAVEV specifies the index of the Motoman variable containing the command.
  • The second SAVEV specifies the command number, and the cell address if required.
  • The third SAVEV specifies the index of the Motoman variable that will contain the result data sent from In-Sight.
  • The LOADV causes the data to be sent.

Motoman Commands

Nine Native Mode commands are supported in Motoman mode. The robot controller programmer must send all commands as a Motoman "D" variable. For more information, see Native Mode Commands. The supported commands and their Motoman mode equivalents are listed in the following table:

Native Mode Command Motoman Mode equivalent

Set Job (SJ)

100000

Get Job (GJ)

200000

Set Online (SO)

300000

Get Online (GO)

400000

Set Event (SE)

500000

Set Integer (SI)

600000

Set Float (SF)

700000

Set String (SS)

800000

Get Value (GV)

900000

The commands SJ, GJ, SO, GO, and SE do not require any additional parameters to fully specify the command. Therefore, any value between 100000 and 199999 represents an SJ command, any value between 200000 and 299999 represents a GJ command, and so on.

The commands SI, SF, SS, and GV require parameters to be sent as part of the command, specifically, a reference to a cell in the In-Sight spreadsheet. But because Motoman robot controllers do not send alpha characters, the column reference for the desired In-Sight cell must be specified numerically. The column number is 01000 through 26000, where 01000 indicates column 'A', 02000 indicates column 'B', and so on (e.g. 26000 indicates column 'Z'). The row number is added on as-is to complete the cell address.

Since a complete Motoman-equivalent Native Mode command will always be a number in excess of 100000, all commands sent by the robot controller must be stored as Motoman D-variables.

A complete Motoman mode command is constructed as follows:

Robot controller D-value command = N + CC + RRR

  • N is the Native Mode "equivalent" {100000 through 900000}
  • CC is the column number "equivalent" (01000 through 26000)
  • RRR is the row number.

Motoman Command Example

A command to get the value from cell B123 in the active In-Sight spreadsheet job would be written in Native Mode as GVB123. The equivalent command issued from the Motoman robot controller is 902123 ( 900000 + 02000 + 123 ).