Fanuc Robot Tools

Fanuc Commenter - Excel Tool for Reading/Writing Robot Comments

I've put together an Excel-based tool for managing comments on Fanuc  robots. It lets you read and write comments for registers, IO, frames,  and more directly from a spreadsheet - no need to navigate through the  teach pendant menus. The vba code in the tool is unlocked, so feel free to peek under the hood if you want to look at how it works.

What it does:

The tool communicates with the robot's web server to read and write comments for:

• Registers (R[])
• Position Registers (PR[])
• String Registers (SR[])
• User Alarms (UALM[])
• Digital IO (DI/DO)
• Robot IO (RI/RO)
• Group IO (GI/GO)
• Analog IO (AI/AO)
• Flags (F[])
• User Tools (UTOOL)
• User Frames (UFRAME)
• Safety IO (CSI, CSO, SIR)

For each type, you can:

• Read all comments from the robot
• Write all comments to the robot
• Write only non-blank comments
• Write only selected rows

In addition to that, the tool can read and write values for:

• Registers (R[])
• String Registers (SR[])
• User Alarms (with severity)

Requirements:

• V7.70+ Fanuc robot with web server enabled
• Karel & KCL unlocked in Host Comm setup (HOST COMM->HTTP settings)
• Network connection between your PC and the robot

Setup:

1. Open the Connection Settings sheet
2. Enter your robot's IP address in the Robot_Connection (B1) cell
   1. Format is IP:Port (example: 127.0.0.1:80)
3. Click "Test Connection" to verify

Enabling Macros:

Since  this is an .xlsm file downloaded from the internet, Excel will block  the macros by default. You will have to unblock the sheet after you  download it. Do that by right clicking on it and clicking on the unblock  checkbox. Once you open it, you may have to enable macros for the  sheet.

How it works:

The tool uses two interfaces to communicate with the robot:

1. ComSet/ComGet - Fanuc's built-in comment setter web interface. This handles everything except uframes/utools and safety comments.
2. KCL (Karel Command Language) - Used for user tools, user frames, and safety IO comments. These  aren't supported by ComSet, so we send KCL commands directly via HTTP.  This method is much slower than ComSet/ComGet so be prepared for about 1 second per write in these sheets.

Known Limitations:

• Robot must have Karel web and KCL access unlocked for full functionality
• Some older controller versions may not support all features
  • I've only tested from V7.70 to V9.40. Not sure if it will work on V10+
• IO point must be defined and online in order to be read in. Comments can still be set while undefined.

Let me know if you run into any issues or have suggestions for improvements.