MECHATRONIC MINUTE- YASKAWA MOTOMAN'S MLX

In this video, Chad Heitschmidt, Applications Engineer at Mechatronic Solutions, covers the MLX software option from Yaskawa Motoman.

MLX is a software option offered by Yaskawa Motoman that allows you to program and control a Motoman robot from an Allen-Bradley PLC and PanelView HMI™. We’re on MLX300 now, which is the 3rd generation of the MLX platform. It is mostly a software option, but there is a little hardware that comes with it. When you order this option from Motoman, the robot and controller come pre-configured for the connection to the Rockwell/Allen-Bradley PLC.

It comes with a set of PLC programs, HMI projects for PanelView™ and MobileView™, around 40 Add-On Instructions (AOIs), and a host of User-Defined Tags (UDTs). The AOIs will give you all of your robot motion, joint moves, and linear moves. The pre-configured HMI screens will provide an auto screen, teach screen, tool properties, user frames, and cubic interference zones.

There are some minimum requirements on the PLC. It will need to be ControlLogix®, CompactLogix™, or GuardLogix®, and they need to be the L3 processor and up. They also need to have 2MB of memory. But it does not need to be the motion processor. So, all of the motion is still done in the robot controller and all of the kinematics are going on in there. Additional minimum requirements include Studio 5000 needing to be version 24.00 or higher, when using Windows 10®, it needs to be version 30.00 or higher. And FactoryTalk® View for the HMI needs to be version 7.00.00 or higher.

The MLX platform works for a vast array of Motoman robots and controllers, including the DX200 and YRC controllers, and pretty much any of the general robot handling/palletizing applications.

If you have any questions or would like any more information, please contact us here at Mechatronic Solutions: https://mechatronicsolutions.com/about-us/contact-us