Persistent Controls

Owned by Daniel Rogge
Last updated: Feb 15, 2022 by Amanda Lucas
2 min read

The Persistent Controls section makes up the bottom half of the screen. Unlike the Notebook section, the areas that display in the Persistent Controls section don't change – they display regardless of the activity you're doing.

Activities are grouped into the following areas:

  • Program Control Area (left third)

  • Position Status Area (middle)

  • Manual Control Area (right third)

Program Control Area Reference

From the Program Control area, you can do the following activities either before starting or while running a robot program:

  • Bring the robot out of reset status.

  • Start, stop, or step through a program.

  • Use overrides on velocity and feed rate to adjust the robot’s motion speed during a program.

The following controls make up the program control area:

  • Cycle Start

  • Single Block

  • Feed Hold

  • Optional Pause

  • Stop

  • Reset

  • Feed rate override slider and 100% button

  • Maximum velocity override slider and 100% button

For more information on the controls in the program control area, go to https://tormach.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ROBO/pages/2815066240. You can also read the documentation for each of the controls in PathPilot itself – hover over the control, leave the mouse stationary, and read the tool tip that displays. When you move the mouse, the tool tip window closes.

Position Status Area Reference

The Position Status Area displays the currently active user frame and tool frame, and drop-down controls that allow you to change the active user frame or tool frame. The digital readout (DRO) fields display the current Cartesian position (X, Y, Z, A, B, and C), and the read-only DROs to the right of the joint labels (J1, J2, …) display the current joints' angular positions.

By default, these controls display linear units in millimeters and angular units in degrees. You can change this on the Settings tab.

The Zero buttons to the left of the Cartesian position DRO fields allow you to modify the current user frame by “zeroing” out that Cartesian value. To prevent accidental button presses, you must hold these buttons down for 3 seconds to take effect. You can also change the active user frame by typing directly into the DRO field and then pressing the Enter key on the keyboard.

Manual Control Area Reference

The Manual Control Area is used with jogging.