Does it work with Robots?

Hello there guys, 

I have an ABB6600 Industrial Robot and I wonder if I can use LinuxCNC to make it work as a plasma cutter. I have seen so many videos and I have read some about it, eventho, I have seen so many lathes and mills beign retrofitted and turned into CNC, but not sure if it is posible with a 6 axis-robot.

Thank you very much for your attention. 

 
 

While serial manipulators like your ABB robot can be controlled using LinuxCNC there are several limitations that might make it impossible to follow a complex tool path at a constant speed as required for plasma cutting.
The first problems are usually only partly related to LinuxCNC:
- How are you planning to create the toolpath?
- Do you have access to a 6-axis CAM package?
- Can that CAM spit out standard GCode? Because most robots use a proprietary programming language and LinuxCNC cannot use any of those (although it might be possible to write a suitable interpreter if you are a genius with lots of time on your hands).

Full disclosure:
I don't have a plasma cutter but I do have a (mostly idle) robot.

Edit:
This recent post by Andy might give you an idea of some of the fundamental limitations of LinuxCNC when using nontrivial (ie non-cartesian) kinematics:
forum.linuxcnc.org/24-hal-components/464...ous-movements#248016