A mechanical unit can be either a robot, usually 4 or 6-axis, or an external axis, for example, a rotational tool holder or a linear slide. An IRC5 controller cabinet usually has a single drive unit to control up to 6 axes of a robot plus three additional drives. Its computer can be interfaced with up to 4 of such cabinets therefore can control a maximum number of 36 axes.
Sometimes when a mechanical unit component such as axis motor, cable is faulty, it may effect the overall controller and it is not possible to operate any of the axes anymore. An example of such situation is when an external axis motor burns out and two critical faults, 31316 Motor current error and 31318 Drive inverter saturated, occur.
In order to operate the other working mechanical units, the faulty one needs to be deactivated. Before that, that option needs to be enabled via configuration from RobotStudio.
Change Deactivation Forbidden under Configuration -> Motion -> Mechanical Unit to No. After that a warm start is required for the change to take effect.
After the restart, switch the robot controller to manual mode, the mechanical unit then can be activated/deactivated under jogging menu of the FlexPendant.
