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Robot Preparation

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Jules van der Toorn edited this page Jan 2, 2021 · 4 revisions

This section will go through the required preparation to allow your Techman Robot to be controlled externally.

TMFlow version

First, make sure your TMFlow version is 1.80 or higher. This is an important step, as otherwise most settings mentioned below are not available.
If your TMFlow is outdated, download the latest TMFlow binary at the download center and follow this tutorial to install it.

Setup ethernet connection

  1. Plug in an ethernet cable from your router into the Control Box at the ethernet port labelled 'GigE'. It is important that this exact port is used, as any other won't be properly recognized by TMFlow.
  2. Go to the System > Network setting page. You should see an entry for the ethernet connection you just plugged in.
  3. Select either the 'Get IP from DHCP' or the 'Static IP' option, this is your own preference. 'Static IP' is recommended as that prevents an unexpected change of IP.

Enable the TMFlow server

  1. Go to the Settings > Connection page and then to the 'Ethernet Slave' tab. If it is currently enabled, disable it.
  2. Open the 'Data Table Setting' overview
  3. On the top right, set 'Communication Mode' to STRING
  4. Check all boxes in the 'Predefined' list of items
  5. Save the configuration
  6. Now enable the ethernet slave

Test server connection

Open the TMFlow log by clicking on the top-right icon. You should see a message 'Ethernet slave opened at <robot IP address>:5891.
To verify that you've executed the previous steps correctly, you can create a simple socket client to listen to the TMFlow server broadcast. To do this, run the following command:

$ nc <robot IP address> 5891

You should now receive a constant stream of internal parameters from the robot.

Put robot in listen mode

In order to send motion commands to the robot it should be put in listen mode. This can be done as follows:

  1. Create a new project
  2. Connect a 'Listen' node to the 'Start' node
  3. Start the project

Test full connection

After all of the above steps are complete, your robot should now be executing inside a listen node. To test if the complete communication interface is properly working, run the following:

$ python3 test_connection.py <robot IP address>

What's next?

Congratulations! You're ready to use techmanpy! Go to the Library page to discover all available functions.

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