Painting

To know how to use the Paint add-on, go to Help File > Tasks > Robots > Painting.

Note: Atm available in VC Robotics and VC Premium. Remember, you need to use a paint gun component and use signals to turn on and off painting by that component.

Hello Zesty,

I don’t have the painting chapter in my Help File.

Can you tell me how to procede?

Thank You.

Do you have VC Robotics or VC Premium? If not, you can’t do painting, so it’s not in that product’s Help File.

Hi peeps

Any ideas on how to set up robots for painting? I saw the help file but there aren’t any instructions to set up the robot and paint gun. Would like to paint a simple cylinder. Thanks in advance!

@terbgill In a nutshell, connect the paint gun to robot, and then in the robot program set the signal in paint gun to True or False to turn on/off painting during simulation. You would need to use the Painting feature to prepare a component like a cylinder for painting, otherwise the paint wouldn’t be applied.

My friend, if you are using Essentials or Professional then you cannot use the Painting feature nor visualize the paint.

Thanks a lot Zesty.

I am the Painting feature on the version that I have.

Are you able to coach me through the signals settings for the paint gun?

I have not worked on signals yet. Apologies if I sound as though I want to be “spoon-fed”. I have little experience on this software and an upcoming deadline.

Use the Connect Signals command and task pane to quickly check the connected signals in the robot or paint gun. The task pane has a Signals column with a filter for showing only connected signals. The signals should be automatically connected when you PnP the gun to the end of robot arm.

Once you know the signal, teach the robot to go to the approach point. After that, add a Set Bin Output statement that sets the connected paint signal to True. After that, teach the robot the tool path, i.e. the spray path. After that, add a Set Bin Output statement that sets the paint signal to False.

Depending on which paint gun you are using, you probably can just select the gun, and then see what the signals are in the Component Properties panel.

Signaling is the same as signaling a grasp or release action, expect that the gun itself defines what it does when its paint signal value changes.

If you run the simulation and nothing is being painting, you probably need to prepare the workpiece for painting, referencing wrong signal in gun, have not enabled the paint feature and/or restarted the software for the change to go into effect.

Here’s a simple video recording that shows you the steps. Basically you want to use the paint gun available in the online eCatalog. If you have your own gun design, just replace the CAD geometry of the gun (use copy paste) and relocate the existing Nozzle frame to match your new CAD file.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfaHyR19NGw&feature=youtu.be

Usually,we will set the color mapping by manually clicking the properties panel.

I want to know if I can import data from outside through a python script to control the color mapping to make the settings more flexible.

Hi,

I followed the referenced video, my robot is moving and you can see the paint in the area around the paint gun but by workpiece is not painted when leaving the workprocess.
I do the painting in a work process (RobotProcess:Painting::). (see attachment)

Do I need to set signals for the robot controller or with the work process?
What could be the problem?
Thanks for your help!

Hi,

Have you tested is the paint applied to the (static) template component, without using Works?

@lalissy

1. Are you using Visual Components Premium?
2. Did you enable the Paint add-on backstage and restart VC Premium?
3. Did you click Program tab, and then click Paint subtab to access Ribbon commands for preparing parts for painting?
4. Did you select the workpiece, and then prepare it for painting?

Long story short, from the attached image it looks like the workpiece is not prepped, so no paint would be applied to it.

Is painting only available in VC Premium 4.1? I have 4.0 Premium, but there’s no any paint panel.

That’s probably because you did not Enable the feature backstage. See Painting topic in Premium Help.

File > Options >Add On and then go to Paint and click Enable, and then restart. The Paint tab will be displayed when you click the Program tab. The Paint tab is a subtab for the Program tab, so it will be shown above it.

Thank you a lot, Zesty! I’ve found it now.

(Moved to new topic)

Hi all,

I have a weird problem in painting. When a link from my robot comes too close to the paint gun’s spray, the link turns orange. Sometimes my other environment components get the orange too. We’re talking about items other than the one I prepared for paint. I think the material is being deleted by the paint spray program; when I use “Pick Material” before it reports correctly (aluminum, dark_gray, cheezburgr, etc) and afterward “Pick” gets nothing. I read in the docs that material-less items are highlighted orange.

The distance and angle needed are so random that running the simulation multiple times has different orangeness results. Some items that don’t come remotely close to the sprayer still get the orange. The materials eventually reset - like when I reload the layout file or sometimes when I save a part. Occasionally saving the component will save it orange, and I have to re-texture everything.

Before:

During:

The robot just painted down that line and made the corner. Its base just went orange.

Robot self-painting shouldn’t be possible:

After resetting the simulation:

Anybody recognize this? What might be the issue?

Also, second question: Some of the more complicated parts I prepare for paint lose their tesselation when I load the layout again. I can even save the tesselated component and save the scene and it’s still lost. Wat? Can I get it to stay prepared?

Big thanks if anybody has any advice for me!

Yours,

P. Poog