Creating jobs
A licensed installation of FANUC LADDER-III on the octoplant server or a octoplant agent is required.
FANUC CNC units have two different types of memory: SRAM and FROM. This results in some special features when working with octoplant.
- The SRAM is the battery backed RAM of the CNC. It contains parameters, offsets, variables, etc.
- The FROM is the Flash ROM of the CNC. It contains the PMC program, SRAM backups, etc.
Similar to the recommended file structure in the project tree, we recommend manually creating three separate jobs, one for CNC data, one for PMC data and one for SRAM data for disaster recovery. For the job that backs up the SRAM backup, you should select Do not compare under upload and compare as the comparison strategy.
Configuring jobs for FANUC CNC components
- Start the AdminClient and open the Jobs module.
- In the Project tree, select your FANUC CNC component.
- In the menu tab, click on Create or drag and drop the components into the Jobs section.
- Check in the section Job configuration, if the upload type FANUC CNC is being displayed.
- Make sure the desired settings are in place for the following sections: General, Notification, Upload and compare, Create a version automatically after job run. The Notification and Create a version automatically after job run sections are only displayed if the necessary settings have been implemented.
- Configure the section FANUC CNC settings as follows:
- Select a Connection type.
- For a HSSB connection, the computer from which the upload is to be performed will need to have a suitable interface card from FANUC and the appropriate drivers. A node ID must also be specified in the job configuration. The default value for the node ID is 0.
- For an Ethernet connection, you must enter an IP address or the device name and the FOCAS port. The default port is 8193.
- To restore your FANUC CNC units with a backup, check the checkbox Copy disaster recovery data and then select from the drop down list how to copy the SRAM backups.
- Creating SCRAM Backup Select this option only if you know that the device is in emergency stop during job execution.This is the only option that creates a complete disaster recovery backup.
- Copy all SRAM backups from the F ROM Select this option only if you know that the device is running (that is to say, NOT in emergency stop) during job execution.If it is not possible to create a valid SRAM backup due to the device type or firmware version, this is the only possible option.
- Try to create SRAM backup, copy SRAM backups from F-ROM if SRAM is blocked Select this option only if you want octoplant to apply option I (see above) on stopped devices and option II. on running devices.
- This is the preferred method for octoplant.
- Determine whether PMC data, CNC data and user data should also be copied during job execution.
- Save the job and execute it.
- Select a Connection type.
Why do problems occur when backing up the program directory of FANUC robots?
When creating a job for backing up programs of a FANUC robot via FTP you need to be aware that the directory name mc: has to be entered in the section FTP settings -> text field Subdirectory.
Explanation
The operating system (OS) of FANUC robots requires directory names to end with a : (colon). This rule is in contradiction to the notation of commands of the File Transfer Protocol (FTP). FTP commands can or must include one or more colons, but it is not permitted that they end with that character.
A FANUC robot or rather the data that is stored on its storage device have to be backed up via FTP (= upload type).
When creating a job to backup the FANUC robots via FTP using the AdminClient every robot is specified by its IP address or (computer) name. Either IP address or computer name has to be entered in the named text fields which are located in the section FTP settings. The text field Subdirectory can be found in this section too.
As long as no other directory is specified by a valid path entered into the text field Subdirectory, only the data located in the directorymc:
will be backed up. The directory namemc:
represents the hard disk of the robot where the operating system is stored.
If it is not the OS that you want to back up but the robot programs, these are stored in directorymc:
. Directory mc:
represents a flash disk that is incorporated into the file system when the robot’s OS is booted.
Note
Directorymc:
can only be accessed or rather its content can only be displayed if the corresponding flash card is
located in the appropriate slot.
If the flash card is not present and still an attempt is made to access data stored on it the following error message will be displayed:
“Error while calling a FTP function [Name: IwcdFtpDLXComPtr::GetFile][Error text: Requested action not taken. File unavailable (for example, file not found, no access).][Details: /mc:/from00.img][40550]”.