2. Adding a Tool

Cell Editor Walkthrough

This tutorial is part 2 of a 5-part walkthrough on creating your first cell in the verbotics cell editor. It acts as an introductory guide to cell editor, and it is recommended you complete all 5 walkthrough videos before viewing the proceeding tutorials.

In this tutorial, we“ll be creating a weld-torch to add to the robot we created in part 1. We“ll also be exploring different ways we can create, save and add different tools to a robot.

Prerequisites and Resources

This walkthrough uses an example part which can be downloaded here as well as a torch preset which is available to download here. Additionally, if you haven“t yet installed Verbotics Weld or imported any cells, see our installation tutorial first.

This walkthrough continues on from part 1“s cell, if you lost or didn“t save that cell, download the example cell here to continue on with this tutorial.

Video Tutorial

Timestamps:

• 0:00 Start
• 0:15 Introduction
• 0:56 Step 1: Creating a New Tool
• 7:18 Step 2: Swapping Tools

Step by Step Guide

Introduction

This 5-part walkthrough takes you through creating a cell from scratch for use in Verbotics Weld. This second part will explore the creation and model configuration of tools, and appropriately adding them to your robot.

Step 1: Creating a New Tool

Creating Kinematics, Visual Bodies and Collisions

To start, navigate to the robot-flange link, then create a new joint named «torch_joint». Under this joint, create a link and name it «torch_link».

Selecting the robot-flange link once more, create another joint and link, this time naming them as «nozzle_joint» and «nozzle_link» respectively.

With the torches kinematics created, the next step is to add the visual bodies.

Create a new body using the create body button .

Set this new body“s type to be visual. Next, in the group of options labelled mesh, select open new and select the torch mesh.

Once loaded, the tools model should be applied to the torch link.

Примечание

If the origins for your joints and links aren’t positioned correctly, your tool may import misaligned with the tool flange. This can be fixed by realigning the origin and joints. See the manipulation of cell elements tutorial for more on this.

Now that the model has been added, the next step is to create the collision bodies around this model.

Weld Torch Tool

Select the torches meshes, then right click and select the create bounds option. Now, select the cylinder option for the shape, and set the decompose quality to be accurate. Then, click create to add the collision bodies to the cell.

Torch Model Configuration

All that“s left is to group the torch bodies together and inform the cell that this new link and joint are the robot“s tool.

First, create a new group and add the torch joint. Then, go ahead and open the model configuration and add a new tool under our robot.

General Tool Configuration

Here you can add the torch“s bodies and specify its sensing and planning parameters:

1. In tool group dialogue, type torch and select the torch group.

2. In the TCP dialogue, select the tools nozzle link.

3. Shift to the sensing tab, ensure touch sensing is enabled

4. Click save to confirm the model configuration.

Sensing Tool Configuration

With that, the robot now has a functioning tool attached, capable of sensing and welding.

Step 2: Swapping Tools

To rapidly add or swap pre-created tools to our robot, you can use the preset library built into cell editor.

Presets Library

The cell editor preset library holds an assortment of pre-prepared parts, robots and other cell parts that can be easily dragged and dropped into projects.

The library is sourced from 2 locations, the first being the verbotics preset library which stores various presets made available for cell editor users. The second is the local library stored on your device.

For the preset downloaded for this tutorial to be used in cell editor, it needs to be added to this local library.

Click the folder icon to open up the local preset folder, and add the torch vbpreset file here.

Return to cell editor and reload the preset library.

Remove the torch we created earlier by deleting the torch and nozzle joint. Now, click and drag the torch preset. You“ll see a green sphere appear on the tool flange, if you drag the preset over this sphere, it should turn blue. Once this happens, release the preset.

Presets Library

Upon doing this, the tool should be automatically placed at the robots flange link, and includes all kinematics, visual and collision bodies ready to use.

The only manual task that may need completing is to re-align the tool with the robot.