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WANTED: Software for Unimation Puma 560 robot.

AlanKilian

New Member
Joined
Oct 4, 2004
Messages
1
I have several Puma 560 robot arms made in the 1970s by Unimation.

I have gotten two of them working, but I am looking for some software that was released on 5 1/4" floppoes called "potcal".

Does anyone know if they have a copy?

You can see my old-robotics website to see what's going on.
http://bobodyne.com/web-docs/robots/AlanPuma/index.htm
http://bobodyne.com/web-docs/robots/Puma560/index.html
VAL_2_sm.jpg

rsoh05.jpg
 
I couldn't resist poking around for this one. This might all be old news to you, but I found this:
http://www.rpautomation.com/softprogs.htm
but no downloadable versions anywhere else. My guess is that it's proprietary software, and these are the guys that own it.

You might have already seen this as well:
http://www.e.kth.se/~e98_aar/resources/rtcontrol.pdf
but I figured I'd put it up here since they're using the same arm you are.

Good luck, it looks like a really cool project!
 
puma 560 software

puma 560 software

Don't know if you have found this software or not but...
I work at Becton Dickinson Canaan Ct in the late 70's and an engineer John Verbikas (sp) worked with these robots, also Alex Knowle the electrical engineer. I believe if you have not found this Potcal they might be able to help you find it. I understand they both still work there.
 
Refresh:2009 - Joined Puma owners Club, Any help ?

Refresh:2009 - Joined Puma owners Club, Any help ?

I just became the gleeful owner of a Puma 560C. I have the PDP-11/73.
(youTube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29JoJRHsn2g)

I was happy to see this post, then sad to see it was years old.

I have a Floppy drive that came with the unit that has a 3 wire serial connection to the PDP. When the PDP boots it asks, "Load VAL from floppy (Y/N)?"

The 5/25 floppy looks worn and I am sure it will fail sooner than later. I have heard of people making 'Emulators'. I captured both sides of the conversation from the boot up routine, loading VAL but I can not decode the protocol being used. It is similar to several I have seen before... Namely it looks a lot like RIFF for wav files. But not exactly. Any help decoding it would be greatly appreciated.

I know this might be a more of a vintage Robot thing, but from what I have read the PDP used a similar format for the TU-58 tape drive. Although that protocol (From what I could find) did not match the data I have.

I have attached a sample of the captured communications with my guesses as to what is being said.. I am close but not there yet. While this is the loading of VAL at startup, based on the size of the Z80 board used to control the floppy (8k-eprom) I am guessing the floppy is not smart enough to know this is a boot file. The file name 'VAL II 560C' is sent first so I am guessing that the floppy is just spooling out the file that was called for. If I am right then loading other files should follow a similar pattern.


If anybody can recognize this I would be very thankful... I hope to write a little floppy emulator program for the PC so I can reload VAL if I need to, but also so I can save and load settings, configs, and programs.

(ps. a listing of all the VAL commands would be a hoot also! I only know Move, Break, Pause and Teach)


Thanks all..
-Mike
 

Attachments

  • CaptureSample.txt
    4.4 KB · Views: 4
More Puma info.

More Puma info.

I have the POTCAL and other files now.
I also have a PDF scan of a maintenance manual for the arm and my controller.
I have scans of chap3 (Path Control) and chap6 (Ext Communications) from the VAL I Language Manual.

I also have torn apart and rebuilt my arm and controller so I have some inside info now if anyone has any questions I might know the answer or I could help you find it.

Important Suggestion:
If your unit NEEDS to load VAL from Floppy every time you power up the NiCad batteries on your memory boards are shot.
Power down and in a static safe area, remove the three memory cards on the back left of the controller. The battery on my cards looked like a very thick watch battery. One had just started leaking. No board damage yet so I took all three out. I then soldered wires with Power plugs onto the boards and connected standard AA sized 1.2v NiCad batteries. The new batteries are mounted with Velcro pads on the inside of the cabinet.

P.S. Does anyone know where I can get a FULL copy of :
Programming manual user's guide to VAL II Part number:398T1

-Mike
 
Not much makes me jealous but I am green with envy. Those are wicked cool. I noticed you're in NE. Close to Omaha? :)

-Matt
 
We have replaced our Puma's with Epson and have a load of spare parts, 2 complete Pumas, documentation and the controller chassis. Feel free to contact for info. I'm sure we have Val programming manuals.

Steve
 
Matt - They are cool. I had been trying to find one for years and finally one hit the market and I picked it up. I didn’t mind getting one that was removed from service. It was cheaper because all the cables and extra wires were just disconnected and thrown in a heap. It took me about a week to tear it down and figure out how to get it back together again. The refurbished ones cost over $5000 on the low end.. Shesh! I can buy cars that are newer than the Pumas for less than that!

I had a lot of help from a loosely knit Puma community. But I am still in the 'baby steps' stage because the manuals I have are not 100% compatible with the machine I am using. Some of the commands do not work and I have yet to get the CS4-IO units to accept INPUTS. Outputs work fine; SIGNAL(1) turns on relay 1, SIGNAL(-1) Turns it off.
(There are 32 output relays and 32 Optically Isolated Inputs on a single IO unit for those wondering)

There were jumpers in the unit that had to be changed on each input to select 110V or 24V input. Each Input has a Bridge Rectifier on it so AC or DC works just as good.

The LEDs light up when I apply the input signal but the SIG(x) command never shows any change. I am still working on that part of the system. I think I am just using the command wrong.

STEVE!
DUDE! MY NEW FRIEND! Talk about envy! I would love to have (Spare Parts). Don’t get me wrong, the new systems today are cool. I actually have 2 Kuka pallet loaders at my day job as well as 20 Automatic-Guided-Vehicles (AGV) Forklifts in our warehouse. But my Puma is like a vintage car, I just get a kick out of digging around in that system and learning how it was all put together. It makes me appreciate what the new stuff can do. I have also gained a better understanding of Kinematics then I ever had before.

About those parts and Manuals you have. How attached to them are you... Hummmm? Actually I would pay for a photo copy of the documents you have! I would also be willing to talk about those parts and Pumas you have. It never hurts to have extra parts for older systems!

I am setting up a new email address so you guys can get in touch directly it will be RobotGuy (at) Theatronics (dot) com {I know I shouldn't post addresses here, but How else can I get those amazing manuals eh!? Besides if it gets spammed I’ll delete it and make a new one.. }

I just configured the address so it might take a while for it to show up in email servers. If your email doesn't get through try again in a few hours.

I am also setting up a web page (www.theatronics.com) where I want to begin posting all the data I can about Pumas and Robotics I have found. There seems to be a huge lack of detailed technical info on the web. (Unless you like tearing through thesis and doctoral drivel looking for something useful)

-Mike
 
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Needing more information on a purchase.

Needing more information on a purchase.

Hi all, I found this post browsing google. Lucky me!
I just came across a Unimate Puma 500 that a guy sells locally. I called him and he told me that he has the arm,power supply/controller box.
No cables are included.
I will love to wake this baby up if I can. I don't know how difficult will be.(the current owner is a consultant in robotic programing.) I have some electronic background but no programing at all. I will not only need the cables but also the handheld remote to program it right? I have no clue of how to get started and where to get parts. Thank you all for any info!
 
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ARIEL,
that’s a bargain, I wonder how much is wrong with it… Hummm.
(I would buy it just for the chance to rebuild it!)

I don't have all the answers, in fact I think I have a fraction of them, but I know a few people who have a few more fractions. We should be able to help.

You will need the following things as a minimum.
(Depending on the exact model of course)
A controller box.
A "Teach" Pendant
An Arm (duh)
and the cable(s) to connect the arm to the box.

The 560 Model had 2 cables (one for Servo power and the other for Pots and Encoders) The 260, I believe, only had 1 cable.

You should also get a floppy drive possibly an older 5 1/4 inch or maybe a newer 3.5. IT will come with a disk labeled SYSTEM or VAL.

You may also get an older black & white terminal with a membrane keyboard.
The Terminal is not absolutely needed, but the floppy and the disk are really important.

Most controller units have a set of 2 or 3 cards that have CMOS memory chips on them. These chips are backed up by 2.4v NiCad batteries.

If those batteries are low you might loose the operating system (VAL).
That is not a major problem if you have the floppy drive and a disk.

You will need the floppy however because there is a file stored on the disk that holds the calibration data. The VAL OS calls it the OVERLAY. It tries to load it right after the system loads. See (INITIALIZE) down below.

You can not connect a standard IDE type floppy to the LSI computer; it only knows Serial ports, no South bridge to an IDE chipset. (Sigh)
The Floppy drives I have seen are actually a standard 5 ¼ floppy with a daughter board installed that handles all the drive access. To the Controller (LSI Computer) the floppy drive looks like a TTY Terminal.

If you do not have the floppy drive but you do have the disk then you might still be able to get this working. There is a Floppy simulator that runs on a PC. The trick is to get the data off the floppy and on the PC. Of course the floppy is in a weird format for the 5 1/4 size but there is a program that can read it (I worked with the developer to add the PUMA format to his lib)

If you do not have the floppy disk (even if you do have the drive) you are running the risk that the VAL OS is not in memory or may fade once the batteries get low. I do not know if the version of VAL that I have would be compatible with your controller. That might take some searching to find the right version for your unit.

The whole startup process should go something like this.
Connect Teach Pendant to Round serial port on the back of the controller. (It might be labeled Teach or Pendant or J10)

Connect a Serial terminal to the CONSOLE port (J11).

Connect the Floppy to the FLOPPY port (J12)

You may also have a J13, that is and AUX serial port that you can access from VAL.
It is useful for connecting to a PC running software. Don’t worry about it right now.

Connect The Arm cable(s) If there are 2, they will be different sizes so you can’t get them mixed up, and the cables are Keyed so you can’t connect them upside down or backwards

The exact switches on the front of your controller may vary for others I have seen, but the POWER switch should be easy to find. There should also be a switch that has a choice of a HAND or a symbol that represents the front of the controller. Turn it to the Controller icon .

At this point you should clear EVERY THING AND EVERYBODY away from the robot. If you can , don’t do this indoors unless you have an empty room with high ceilings.

Turn on the power.

IF all is well the fans should come on and you will hear a beep from the Pendant.
At first it should say something like “UNIMATE” or “UNIMATION” or even
“STAUBLI”
Then a moment later it should say NO VAL.

IF you get this far your are over 80% home.

The NO VAL means that you need to load VAL or tell the robot to access VAL from Memory.

This is where you need a terminal. You can use a standard PC with Hyperterm connected to J11. I’ll look up the PINOUT for that port, You only need RX,TX and GND. The rest of the pins are not even used.

Once you get the terminal hooked up, after powering on the controller it should say
“LOAD VAL FROM FLOPPY ?”
If you say ‘N’ then the system will ask if it should INITIALIZE.
If you have a floppy connected with the SYSTEM or VAL disk in place
Say ‘Y’

Then the system will warn you about overwriting user memory.
Say ‘Y’ again.

There will be a BEEP and the Teach Pendant will say ARM POWER OFF.

The terminal should show a single period ‘ . ‘ now. That is the command line prompt.

If you get that far you are 90% home.

Is this the kind of info you were looking for?

-Mike
 
Puma 600

Puma 600

Thank you Mike for taking the time to write such a detail explanation.
The problem is that the guy has no cables for the unit. The only things he has is the arm and the power supply/controller box. not the hand remote or terminal, no software or manuals, just that.
This means that I have to get the cables from someone and the rest of the stuff needed to make it work. Is this impossible? Is it worth it?
I will love to bring it back to life but I don't want to have it sitting in my garage for years.

Best regards!
 
After a brief search of a few hours, I did not find much.
I did find a teach pendant on eBay. The buy it now price is 390 but I’d make a bid for less.

The hardest part with the cables is the connectors. I still have not taken the time to find the original manufacturer of these plugs.

I believe they are made by Harting Elektronik
AllienElec.com carries that brand. I can check the pinouts on my unit to see if they are crossover (pin 1 goes to pin 72) or straight (Pin 1 goes to pin 1)

If you are willing to spend a weekend crimping and soldering, you should be able to build a replacement cable in a weekend.

I will have to research more to be sure but I think the 500 model is similar to the 560.
For now lets assume you need a 72 conductor cable.
You would need 2 connectors (25.00 each)
And 2 housings (32.00 each)
And about 20 foot of 20ga stranded wire X 72 at about a buck a foot that can get very costly. I am asking around to see if I can find some Multi-conductor cable suppliers.
If a single 72 pin cable can not be found, 4 18 pin cables will work also.

I think the cables could be rebuilt from scratch for about $250.00
So if you find anyone selling them for less it would be a good buy.

The Terminal is not as important. If you understand electronics, interfacing a standard computer serial port to the Terminal connection is very easy; I can send you the pin to pin connection.

The only outstanding issue is the software. Without the disk or the floppy you will need to use the emulator program. This means connecting the second serial port of a PC to the Floppy port on the unit. The simulator program then acts like a floppy drive on your PC.

It looks like the 500 and 560 are similar. There are a lot of people out there that have not chimed in yet so someone might respond to the thread with more info.

Until then I’ll keep my eyes out for the software. If you decide not to buy it for yourself,
You might just pick it up and put it on eBay. You could get more than what you paid for it. That is a real deal for anybody who is into those systems.

As far as being worth it. If you really want to mess around with arms and work with them, buying this unit would be a good investment at least for spare parts. Many puma owners have to combine multiple units to get one working unit. Everything else goes on the shelf for spare parts.

If you are REALLY into electronics there have been a few people who have bought the arm and then used Brushed motor servo controllers by a company called GECKO (not the insurance co).

They take Sinusoid Encoder inputs and can drive the puma servo motors. They have entirely replaced the controller with these little units. The down side is that you no longer have the VAL language to help with path planning or other calculations but if you study Kinematics you can figure out how to calculate that stuff yourself.

Of course you said you didn’t do much programming so you might not like the idea of writing your own robotics driver library.

If you want to buy a robot for the nostalgia of the model or the challenge of rebuilding it, you are looking at a perfect starter package. You will need to get some missing parts and it could take a long time to get where you want to be, but the arm and the controller are the two main parts of the kit.

If you just want to get into robotics or robot arms, I’d suggest looking for a newer model that has all the parts. I have been working with automation and robotics a long time so my garage is already full of stuff that is just sitting around, but what else would I put there? (I heard some people put cars there. A car in the house; Who ever heard of such a thing.)

If you decide it isn’t for you, pass the word around, someone might be just waiting to scoop that thing up.

Good luck either way. I’ll keep looking for answers for you.

-Mike
 
Puma 500 or 560?

Puma 500 or 560?

Hey guys it was good to see others are still trying to work with the Puma robots. I just bought one and am trying to find any information that I can on it. Any help would be greatly appreciated. The first question is what is the difference between a 500 and a 560? It has 500 on the side of the arm. Also, the controller powers on, but nothing displays on the terminal and a couple odd characters on the pendant. I contacted the guys that I bought it from and was told that it worked the last time it was used, about a year ago, and that it probably needs to be manually moved to home position before the startup will begin. Is this correct? If so, where is "home" position? Thanks
 
It is troubling that the teach pendant does not say ‘NO VAL’

The teach pendant is connected to a serial port on the controller. On many models there are multiple serial ports. The VDT plug is unique can only fit in one plug, but the teach pendant might be able to connect to the others.

Generally the ports are:
J10 – VDT port (also has a duplicate set of wires from J12)
J11 – Teach Pendant
J12 – Floppy disk (Serial interface)
J13 – Aux Serial Port. (Not the Alter port you hear so much about)

I don’t know if having the teach pendant in the wrong port would cause the system load to fail. I have never tried. Check to see if these ports match your setup and let me know.

Another thing you can check is the memory cards. There are usually three, but again, many models had unique hardware changes so not everyone is the same. If you take the top off the controller (With the power off please) the memory cards for the computer will be in the rear and on the left.

Each one will have some form of battery on them, check for leakage and if you have had the unit on lately, look for 2.4vdc on them. Dead batteries will not stop the program from loading. (I loaded for months with dead batteries before I finally fixed them) But I also wanted you to make sure the cards look clean and that they are seated properly.

The Q-Bus cards do not have a LOCK that holds them in place. If they were shaken around in storage or transport, they could have come loose.

Also check the contacts on the cards for corrosion, They should be bright and brass colored. You can clean them with a standard Pick pencil eraser. Just gently buff the contacts clean.

Another common problem with older electronics is Chip seating. Chips are often not soldered directly to the board but rather they are inserted into sockets. These sockets rely on friction to hold the chips in place and make good connections. Place the board on a firm flat surface. I usually put a piece of cardboard on a table top to insure that the protruding pins on the back of the board do not get bent over or pushed back through the board. Then using both thumbs GENTLY push the chips down into the sockets. You may hear some crackling noses as the chips seat back down. If the board is well supported the noise should just be the chips settling all the way back into the sockets.

All 4 of the standard ports are serial ports from a single card. The standard model number is DLV11J. It has jumpers on it to configure baud rates, Stop-start bits and byte length. Unfortunately, the LSI-11 computer is a very close relative of the PDP-11. Because the PDP had been around for a while, there were several manufactures of parts so the actual serial card might be a replacement. As a result the actual dip-switch or jumper settings change with each card.

But if both the VDT and the TEACH pendant are acting funny, I’d take a close look at the serial card.
It is easy to spot, it will have 4 (or 5) little 10 pin header connectors with ribbon cables coming out of it.

Use a sharpie and label each cable and the plug it goes to before detaching them.
Then pull the card and look for missing jumpers on the bottom of the cage and push the ones on the card firmly in place.

Clean the edge connectors, Seat the chips, and then make sure the card is firmly seated in the slot.

Give it another try and let me know how things go.

-Mike
 
More Answers

More Answers

The Home position:
On each joint on the Puma there is a tiny mark, It looks almost like a scratch in the paint. Both sides of the joint have the same mark. When all the marks are aligned the arm is in its READY or home position. The easiest mark to find is on the ‘elbow’ (joint 3) If you imagine the arm pointing straight up at the ceiling, the mark would be on the side of the arm where the two halves of the joint meet. I colored my marks in with a red sharpie and then cleaned the excess off with a tissue. The result were easy to see marks.
You will need these marks to perform a POTCAL function before you start using the arm.

The Puma has encoders in each joint that can accurately track joint movement however they do not track position. In order to know where the arm is located the system also has a standard potentiometer in each joint. This creates a voltage range that gives a general position of the arm.

In order to get the arm in proper calibration the arm is physically moved to the READY position by releasing the brake for each joint and moving that joint into position.
The process requires you to power up the arm, then turn a switch at the base of the arm to a joint number. Then on the base or on the back of the arm there will be a white button. Pressing that button will release the brake for the selected joint.
Joints 1-3 have their own positions, the last selection on the switch is labeled WRIST.
This position releases joints 4-6 at the same time. Because the wrist is light weight all 3 joints can be aligned at the same time.

Once we get VAL working again I’ll go over POTCAL and CALIBRATE steps.

Model 500 vs. 560
The difference between the models of Puma are still a bit of a mystery to me but here is what I know so far.

260s are smaller versions of the standard Puma arm. They are mostly used for small part pick and place or lab work. These are very popular in smaller schools because the arm fits nicely on a desk.

500-560-562 – all of these arms seem very similar. I have seen about 3 different controller units and some slightly different base configurations.
I believe that 500 is a model family. There is a 5-Axis version and a 6-Axis version. (The 6th being the ability to rotate the last joint of the wrist.

The largest of the models is the 700 series with 762 being the most common.
These look a little different from the other two, The wrist seems to be elongated. But other than that slight change, they still have iconic shoulder and elbow shapes.

From the units I have seen, it appears that the computers are the same but each model has a different amplifier section based on the size of the servos and the expected payload.
Another factor that might have something to do with the model numbers is the computer configuration. Some have only one serial card while others have 2 (a total of 8 ports)

Some use VAL-I others use VAL-II and I have heard that a few late models use V+ (Now used by adept) I have even heard mention of an elusive VAL-III but so far that is just a legend.

Overall I think they are all more a like than different. If anyone has a family tree for the PUMA arms I’d like to see it.
 
Thanks Mike for all the information. I checked a few things today and found the batteries have been replaced with a couple AA batteries and they are dead. As far as the 4-port communication board, the contacts looked clean and didnt' see anything loose. The IC's are soldered on the board without sockets. As far as the ports, the plugs on the board were already labeled as the following:

(looking from the front of the controller from back to front)
P20-Connects to the front of the controller labeled "Manual Control"
P21-Connects to the middle connector in back labeled "Floppy Disc"
P22-Connects to the right connector (Looking at back) labeled "Terminal"
P23-Connects to the left connector (Looking at back) labeled "Access"
Small 4-pin connector that I didn't trace.

I connected teach pendant to "Manual Control", the terminal to "Terminal" and flopply disc to "Floppy Disc".

I haven't found the marks for homing yet will countinue looking and try to find out why is will not communicating and update as I go. Thanks again for all the information.
 
Still More thoughts on the dead Puma

Still More thoughts on the dead Puma

Remember those batteries are most likely NiCads. They could have gone bad. After even a few seconds of Power applied they should have a tiny charge on them. Even if it is not enough to maintain the memory.

If all three are at ZERO volts then there may be a power supply problem.
The main power supply is in the front of the cabinet and is normally split into two sections. High Power for the servos and a 'clean' power for the computer.

I'll look for some specs on the exact voltages but I am expecting +5V and +12 and -12V.

Most of the older Serial cards needed a +/- 12v supply to generate the RS-232 / RS-485 voltage levels. (The actual spec levels were +/- 16 but many systems used 12 and called it good enough)

IF the + or - 12V line is not in spec or missing that would also cause the communications to fail.

A large number of supplies I have worked on drew the +5v from the +12V supply. So if the +5 was working it was likely the +12 was good also. Additionally most TTL/CMOS computer boards did not use the -12v buss for anything but external I/O

But the -12V is usually generated by a alternate winding on the transformer.
So it is possible that the Computer could be working fine with the +12 and +5 but the Serial card is not working well due to a lack of the -12.
 
I guess I'm just out of luck and at least one of the controller boards are bad? Any other thoughts or ideas?
 
Happy New Owner of a Puma 500

Happy New Owner of a Puma 500

I just bought a Puma 500. Will post pics later on.
Mike, I will try to find the cable first. Thank you for your great support!
 
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