Turning a broken 2 ton robot into a CNC-machine | ABB IRB6400

Here’s an overview of the project I’ve been working on for the past few months: resurrecting this 2 ton cast iron beast from the dead and turning it into a CNC milling machine, mainly for foam. The robot is an ABB IRB6400 / , manufactured in 1999. The documents that were still with the robot state that the original customer was the Eurostar train factory located in Austria, where it served as a welding robot. Upon the first startup attempt the controller wouldn’t perform a cold start and gave me : “Error 03:07003 Unexpected interrupt on MC“. After talking to some experts on the ABB robotics forum (thank you graemepaulin for your expertise) they pointed me in the right direction and told me to replace the main or robot computer. Replacing the Robot computer fixed te issue and the S4C controller was able to perform a cold start. I then installed Robotware OS 3.1 and after this i was able to get some movement out of the robot. Once the axis were callibrated again (because the backup battery inside the robot itself also died) i was able to make linear moves and start creating simple programs. Full thread on the ABB Robotics forum can be found here: #latest Furthermore I replaced both backup batteries inside the S4C controller and swapped the Floppy drive for a USB one. This whole process to get the robot up and running took about 2 weeks (had to wait for some parts to arrive). The rest of the time was spend on the development of a program to send coordinates directly to the S4C controller from a PC. Even with the floppy drive swapped for a USB one, the internal memory size was still about the size of a floppy disk (). Which means I was still only able to execute programs of max or around lines of code. Anyone who ever worked with CNC-machines know that even the simplest programs exceed lines. So that’s why i made the application. I’m now able to execute any file size that I need. During the development of the program I used an Arduino Mega as an emulator for the S4C controller, to test out the serial communication protocols and handshakes. --- Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 00:15 Transportation 00:30 Cleaning 00:52 First startup attempt 01:18 Fixing the robot 01:50 First movements 02:12 First program 02:38 Can test full program 03:01 Testing of repeatability 03:40 G-code to Rapid 03:54 3D-printed motor mount 04:10 TCP setup test 04:38 First milling test 05:04 Rapid2Serial Application 05:47 Fine tuning 06:32 Tesla Roadster wheel front 07:19 Tesla Roadster wheel back 08:07 Showcase 08:21 Outro --- Music credit: Outro song: Sustainable Dignity by Catalyst Belgium Link to the video: Link to their channel: Their website: For use and licensing of this song, please contact Catalyst Belgium. Song: Joakim Karud - Classic (Vlog No Copyright Music) Music provided by Vlog No Copyright Music. Video Link: