Each time that the controller boots up, the system automatically reads files stored on the flash disk that specify the current settings for items in the Parameter Database. If you use the system Console or the web interface to subsequently modify any of the parameter values, your changes will only affect the running system. If you do not save your new values into the flash disk files, your changes will be lost when the controller is restarted.
You should note that many of the values specified in Parameter Database disk files are critical for the proper operation of the system. Therefore, if these disk files become corrupted, you will receive warning messages when the system restarts and the system may not be able to properly initialize until new files are provided. The Parameter Database disk files are as follows:
| Configuration and Parameter Database Flash Disk Files | |
|---|---|
|
controller.pac |
Contains the data specific to the controller, e.g. name of the controller, update rate for the trajectory generator, etc. There is only one such file for the system and this file is required for the proper operation of the system. |
|
robotNN.pac |
Contains the data for a specific robot model, e.g. robot nominal speeds, motor servo tuning parameters, etc. There must be one such file for each robot configured in the system. The data for robot #1 is stored in robot01.pac. |
|
calibNN.pac |
Contains the calibration data for a specific robot, e.g. robot serial number, actual robot dimensions, positions of encoder zero indexes, etc. The data in this file is typically unique for each robot that is manufactured whereas the information stored in the robotNN.pac file can be applied to all robots of the same model. There must be one such calibration file for each robot configured in the system. The data for robot #1 is stored in calib01.pac. |
|
diomotionNN.pac |
Defines the parameters for performing a sequence of motions based on triggers from specified digital input signals. This is the MotionBlocks data. There is one such file per robot and the files need not be present if this mode of operation is not utilized. |
|
gpl_vars.pac |
Contains the user "GPL program string" and "GPL program variable " (DataID 1800 - 1899) database variable values. These database variables are not used by the system and are typically utilized by application projects to customize the web interface. |
|
canopen01.pac |
Defines key parameters for the CANopen control protocol including parameters for the first CANopen axis. CANopen is not currently supported so this file need not be present. |
The Configuration and Parameter Database files are written in a simple, readable ASCII text format. Each specification line is presented in the following format:
| DI: 1082, | 0, | 0, | 0, | "Joint max soft stop limit" = | 1000, | 600, | 100, | 180 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |||
| | | | | | | | | Description | | | |||
| | | | | | | Array index | Values | ||||
| | | | | Sub-Structure index | ||||||
| | | Structure index | |||||||
| Data Item ID number | ||||||||
Blank lines and lines beginning with "’" are ignored as well as the description string contents. A single specification line can only be 128 bytes long. However, a specification can be split arbitrarily into multiple lines so long as the total length does not exceed 1024 bytes.
As a convenience to allow a configuration file to be easily reused for multiple robots or to allow the robot number to be changed, for the robot file, if a specification line contains a structure index value of 0, the structure index is derived from the file name, e.g. robot01.pac implies a structure index of 1 for robot #1.