free(1)

NAME
free -- RCI program to free links in the robot.

USAGE
free [<robotName>] [-sim[=<simaddr>]] [-on]

DESCRIPTION
Interactive program used to free (and lock) robot joints. This is mainly used to put robots into some calibration or reference position when they are not calibrated (like putting the PUMA 260 back into its nest). When a robot is calibrated, there are usually easier ways of moving it around (like the "zerograv" program).

ARGUMENTS

robotName --
    Optional robot name. If absent, the name is obtained from the system file $RCCL/conf/defaultRobot.

-sim --
    Causes the program to be run in simulator mode, in which it will attempt to connect to a robot simulator program (see robotsim) instead of connecting to a real robot.

    If unqualified, the -sim option causes the program to seek a simulator running on the same machine under the same user name. A different simulator can be specified by adding an address string <simaddr>, as in -sim=<simaddr>. For the format of this address string, see simAddress(5).

-on --
    Leave the robot arm power on after the program has exited.

OPERATION
The program is interactive. Commands are entered using the C-tree matcher, an automatic command completion utility. Full documentation on the C-tree matcher is given in the file doc/CtreeMatch.doc.

The commands available are:

free --
    Free one or all the joints

lock --
    Lock (or `unfree') one or all the joints

show --
    Show the current robot encoder values. If the robot is calibrated, also show angle values.

quit --
    Exit the program.

CAVEATS
Be careful when freeing the large joints; they are likely to fall under their own weight.

The program right now assumes that joints 2 and 3 deserve care (as they do for the PUMA robots), so the user asked for confirmation whenever either of these joints is freed. The singling out of these joints might not make sense on another robot.