Program from the Steam Deck pendant

The v5 teach pendant is a native Qt app for the Steam Deck's 1280×800 screen. It edits the same programs as the offline programming (OLP) desktop app, because it runs OLP's own program and machine logic inside the app. It talks to a headless OLP server on the Deck, and that server holds the machine session through rt-control.

To install it on a Deck, see Build and install the pendant. Every control is listed in Pendant controls.

How it fits together#

• The app (rosie-pendant-v5) is the only user interface. It reads the gamepad from /dev/input/js0 to js3.
• The OLP server runs headless on 127.0.0.1:8794 as a systemd user unit, rosie-v5-olp. It owns the machine session and serves connect, arm, stop, heartbeat, jog, move, Load and Play, the robot catalogue and planning. The app never talks to rt-control directly.
• Planning goes from the Deck's OLP server to a weld planner on a workstation the Deck can reach.

Because rt-control admits one controller at a time, a desktop OLP or another client holding the same cell locks the pendant out, and the other way round. See One controller at a time.

Closing the app stops the OLP server. Its shutdown stops any machine it armed before it releases control. Starting the app never arms, homes or moves anything.

The screen#

The header shows the program name, its save state (LOCAL, SAVED or UNSAVED), the connected cell and its posture, the Arm pill and ■ STOP. Below it are five pages, which you cycle with L1 and R1:

■ STOP (B, R5, Esc) works on every page and in every dialog. It stops the robot and also disarms. It is a software stop: it is not the hardware E-stop, and a stop receipt does not prove the robot has stopped moving.

Menu opens the controls guide. View jumps to the CELL page.

1. Connect a cell#

On CELL, the list shows the cells in the Deck's cell catalogue (olp-cells.json). Tap one to connect. Connecting checks the cell's identity; it never arms.

• HOME AXES asks the cell to run Home. It appears when the cell supports native Home. Home is not verified against collisions.
• PULL CELL SETTINGS copies the cell's robot settings and calibration into the program.
• ACCEPT CURRENT SETTINGS adopts the current robot description when the program was written against an older one. Plan again and verify before you run.
• DISCONNECT and REFRESH do what they say.

The steps below the list follow OLP's machine steps, so you can see what is still missing before you can arm or load.

2. Arm#

Hold R2 and press A, or tap the Arm pill. On a real machine the pill changes to CONFIRM ARM · A: press A again to confirm, or CANCEL. Arming acquires control and energises the drives.

3. Jog#

On JOG, nothing moves unless you hold R2, the hold-to-enable trigger. Release it and the jog stops.

• Joints: press D-pad ▲▼ to pick a joint, then hold R2 and push the left stick up or down.
• Cartesian: press L3 to switch. Hold R2 and use the left stick for X and Y, the right stick up and down for Z and left and right for RZ. Add L2 to turn the left stick into RX and RY.
• Speed: D-pad ◀▶ steps the jog speed through 5, 10, 25, 50, 75 and 100 %.

Cartesian jog moves one axis at a time: whichever stick direction is largest. A direction counts once the stick is past 0.35 of its travel. Choose BASE or TOOL as the frame, and HOLD or STEP as the mode. In STEP mode each push makes one bounded move of the linear step (100 mm by default) or angular step (15° by default); centre the stick before the next.

After a page change, a mode or axis change, a new direction, the Steam overlay taking focus, or a lost controller, the hold ends. You must bring the controls back to neutral before the next jog starts.

The touch controls do the same without the pad: − and + for each joint, an angle move per joint (± 10° and GO), HOME JOINTS and ALL JOINTS TO 0°. These are joint moves, checked against joint limits only.

Without R2, the right stick orbits the 3D view and L2 with it zooms. R3 resets the view.

4. Record waypoints#

With the robot still:

The pendant records under exactly the same rules as the desktop app: every axis homed and trusted, the robot still, fresh status, and the program's robot description matching the machine's. A refusal appears in the status line as Record blocked: …. See Teach waypoints and moves for each refusal.

5. Edit the program#

PROGRAM shows the node spreadsheet, a page at a time. D-pad ▲▼ moves the selected row; ◀ PAGE and PAGE ▶ page.

Editing is locked while the program runs. The node fields are the same as the desktop's; see Edit a move.

OPEN and SAVE AS read and write OLP project files (offline-programming.project-export.v1 JSON) in ~/Rosie programs. The current program also saves itself to ~/.local/share/Rosie/Rosie Pendant v5/current.olp.json after every change. Press Steam + X for the on-screen keyboard when a dialog asks for a name.

6. Plan, preview and run#

On RUN:

1. PLAN PROGRAM sends the program to the weld planner through the Deck's OLP server. The planner plans and verifies every move, as on the desktop. When it passes, the status says Planned · <samples> samples, <seconds> s · Preview, or Load to robot, and the pendant keeps the trajectory bytes in its own data directory.
2. ▶ PREVIEW PLAN replays the kept trajectory in the 3D view, with a scrubber. ■ END PREVIEW stops it.
3. Choose DRY RUN (process outputs off). Torch outputs are refused in this release, and there is no seam tracking.
4. GO TO PLAN START moves the robot to the plan's first pose with a joint move, then says Move completed. Load to robot, then Play. This move is not verified against collisions.
5. LOAD TO ROBOT loads the trajectory. Load fetches it by digest from the planner's store and checks its identity, the robot description and calibration, and Home.
6. ▶ PLAY starts it. The executing node is highlighted in the program list. ■ STOP ends it.

The pendant plans with the shipped fitted torch and the B-spline free-space solver. It holds no STEP file and has no seam search, so it can plan programs without a CAD part, such as taught moves. A program whose welds come from a part answers This program's part (STEP) is not on the pendant; plan it in offline programming, then open it here.

Only planned programs pass the verifier. Jog, the joint moves, Home and Go to plan start do not. See What is verified before motion.

Telemetry#

TELEMETRY plots the drives' data. Choose the quantity and the time WINDOW. LIVE follows the stream and HOLD freezes it. CAPTURE 1 kHz reads the last few seconds at the full 1 kHz rate.

Related pages#

• Pendant controls
• Build and install the pendant
• Teach waypoints and moves
• Use the virtual pendant
• Offline programming HTTP API