MotoSim, Yaskawa's simulation software, has three programming interfaces that can be used to make changes to jobs: VPP (Virtual Teach Pendant, SimplePP and JobPad. There is also Visual Path Edit, but as it's scope is limited to changing point locations, I'll leave it out of this article, although it's also an interesting tool.
VPP is the virtual teach pendant, and SimplePP is a very simplified version of VPP, which is better for some operations, because you can see more program lines in it.
However, one of the features that I find most interesting and least talked about in MotoSim is the JobPad, an internal text editor, which has some extra features, such as:
* Syntax highlighting
* autocomplete
* Find and replace tools
* Display of jobs in tabs, that is, it is possible to work with more than one job at the same time
* syntax check
As not everything is perfect, there are several aspects of the JobPad that could be improved. For example:
- The only file operation possible in the JobPad is to create a new job. It is not possible to duplicate, delete or do any kind of manipulation with job files. You will need to do this via VPP or SimplePP.
- Improve error messages when checking syntax, and check when saving files. The check tells you which line contains the error, but doesn't go into much detail about what the error might be.
- Automatic synchronization between the three editors: modifications made in the JobPad are automatically reflected in the other two editors after saving the job. But modifications made in SimplePad or VPP are not automatically reflected in JobPad. It is necessary to open the job again.
Anyway, as it stands today, JobPad is already a handy tool, and is especially useful when creating/editing very large programs. And since the jobs are text files, it's also possible to do the heavy lifting in a more traditional editor, then copy and paste the program into the JobPad and use it just to do syntax checking and small final adjustments.
This Yaskawa Nordic video, narrated in what I assume is Swedish, is a good showcase about JobPad usage.
Do you use the JobPad in your day to day work with Yaskawa robots?
