I currently use Ignition with the PLC to remove and replace units from a tray (256 units, 16x16).
Current Process
A tray gets scanned, and Ignition retrieves information about the individual units in that tray. If certain cells are identified as incompatible (i.e., they don’t belong in that specific tray), they are flagged. This list is sent to a Fanuc robot via a PLC, which removes the incorrect cells and replaces them with the correct ones. The updated tray information is then sent back to Ignition for traceability.
What I Want to Do
I want the Universal Robot (UR5e) to communicate directly with Ignition, bypassing the PLC. The goal is for Ignition to send a list of flagged unit positions (cell locations) directly to the UR via Modbus TCP, allowing the UR to autonomously remove and replace those cells without requiring any manual intervention or PLC logic.
The scanner and Ignition’s cell validation logic will remain unchanged. I’d like this to be fully automated.
You're going to have to dig into the PLC to see how they're telling the robot to do the work and replicate it in Ignition. Is the PLC using Modbus TCP to communicate, or is it using some other protocol?
So all the scripts are in Ignition. I can see the logc/rules used to determine which units need to be replaced, where to go to get the replacement unit as well as where to store the bad unit. So my question would be, assuming no PLC was ever used and I’m just trying to communicate from Ignition to Robot and vice versa, how would I got about that?
Also no the plc isn’t using Modbus
That's what I'm saying, you're going to have to reverse engineer how the PLC is doing its part in the process and replicate it in Ignition. I can't tell you how to do what you're asking because I don't know anything about your application and what your PLC is doing. It could be doing more than you think, or could just be sending some basic values to the robot, but without knowing any of that, I can't tell you how you'd go about it. You'll probably want to look into the SFC module though, as I'm guessing that might be a good start.
Is this related to this thread, by chance? Two threads about the exact same robot model in as many days. More out of curiosity than anything, as we're still happy to help.
I think I am having a similar application as wlotus367, I am now able to connect using modbus from Ignition to UR and can read/write, JordanCClark has shared the link to the topic I created, it helped me out, have a look.
