Three days on ABB IRC5: the FlexPendant, jogging and coordinate systems, tool centre points and work objects, then teaching positions and writing RAPID programs with proper structure, program flow and I/O.
About this course
Nine modules, an hour of material and an hour of hands-on work each, which is three days end to end.
It starts where robot training has to start: what makes a robot dangerous, how a cell is safeguarded, and what the enabling device and the operating modes are actually protecting you from. Then the IRC5 system itself, the FlexPendant, and jogging, including the coordinate systems that decide which way the robot goes when you push the joystick, which is where most beginners come unstuck.
The middle of the course is the part that separates people who can teach a point from people who can build a job: tool centre points and work objects. Get those wrong and every position you teach afterwards is wrong with them.
It finishes with RAPID: MoveJ, MoveL and MoveC, speed and zone data, module and routine structure, program flow, operator messages, I/O, and backup and restore.
What you work through
What makes an industrial robot dangerous, how a cell is safeguarded, and the three-position enabling device, emergency stop and operating modes that keep you alive inside one.
Controller, manipulator and pendant, what each does, the operating modes and the motors-on chain, and finding your way around the pendant screens.
Axis-by-axis, linear and reorient jogging, and the base, world, tool and work object frames that decide which way the robot goes when you push the joystick.
Why the TCP is the point everything is measured from, defining one by the four-point method, and proving it is right before you trust a single taught position.
Defining a work object so positions are stored relative to the part rather than the floor, and so moving the fixture does not mean re-teaching the job.
MoveJ, MoveL and MoveC, speed data and zone data, teaching and modifying positions, and running your first program at reduced speed.
Modules, routines and procedures, calling one from another, and laying a program out so the next person can find the bit they need to change.
IF, FOR and WHILE, numeric and boolean data, counters and clocks, and putting readable messages on the pendant for whoever runs the cell.
Digital inputs and outputs and the instructions that drive them, then backing a system up and restoring it, the skill you only value once.
Lab times are approximate: they are a guide to how long the hands-on part usually takes, not a limit. You can ask for more lab time whenever you need it.
All nine module decks for this course are written and can be read now. Each one teaches its procedures as an illustrated sequence of pendant screens and keystrokes: what is on the display at each step, and which key or soft key comes next, so the material can be followed without a teach pendant in your hands.
What is not here yet is the robot. There is no hardware and no simulator for this brand in the lab, so the hands-on hour listed against each module cannot be booked and the knowledge checks are still being written. Reading a procedure is not the same as having done it, and this course does not pretend otherwise.
Written against IRC5 with the FlexPendant. ABB’s current platform is OmniCore, whose pendant differs; the fundamentals carry across but the keystrokes do not.