What Is a Robot Teach Pendant ?

A robot teach pendant is the handheld device for jogging, programming, and diagnosis

A robot teach pendant is the handheld controller an engineer holds beside an industrial robot to jog axes by hand, record taught positions, write and edit programs, and read alarms and I/O status. It is the only manual motion control on most cells, so every program and every taught position on that robot passes through it.

Key facts, if you need the short version:

• ABB calls it FlexPendant, KUKA calls it smartPAD, FANUC and Yaskawa call it the teach pendant or the operator panel. The job is identical across all four.
• The enabling device on the back of the pendant has three positions, and only the middle position allows robot motion.
• ISO 10218-1 clause 5.8.3 (2011 edition) requires the pendant to carry a three-position enabling device, and clause 5.8.2 requires pendant-initiated motion to run under reduced speed control. In the 2025 edition that requirement moved into clause 5.5.4 as a normative part of Chapter 5.
• ABB specifies the IRC5 emergency stop circuit at Performance Level d, Category 3 (ABB product specification 3HAC047400).
• The pendant cable is the part that fails most often, ahead of the keypad and ahead of the safety switches. In our own 2026 inquiry log the cable drew more requests than most complete pendants did.
• A pendant is tied to a controller generation and its software version, so a replacement match needs both the pendant part number and the controller model.

That is why a pendant failure stops a cell. Without it you cannot jog to a position, you cannot create a new program, and you cannot read the fault list on the pendant screen. Your engineers on site can still open the controller cabinet and measure, but the fast path is gone.

The brand names matter at order time, because each one is a product family with its own cable, connector and software baseline. A KUKA smartPAD and an ABB FlexPendant are not the same part under two labels, and neither is interchangeable with the next generation of the same brand.

If you have a pendant in front of you that will not cooperate, send us the pendant model, the controller model, and the part number on the pendant label. We will confirm whether it is a matching unit, a repairable sub-assembly, or a cable issue, and reply with a quote within 24 hours. Request a Quote

The three jobs a teach pendant does on a real cell

Jogging single axes

Jogging is how you find a reference point. The operator holds the enabling device and presses a direction key for one axis at a time, moving J1 or J2 a few millimetres until the pose reads correctly.

This is the step most often skipped and the step that causes the most rework later. Fixture alignment, weld paths, and load and unload points all inherit whatever error was left in the taught position, and that error only shows up as a poor cycle several days later.

Teaching positions and writing programs

A robot program is mostly a list of recorded poses with motion instructions between them. The operator jogs to a point, records it, jogs to the next point, records that, and repeats until the path exists. The program is assembled from what was physically walked through.

FANUC calls the on-pendant language TP. KUKA calls it KRL. Both are written and edited directly on the pendant, which is why a working pendant is a hard requirement for a programmer and not just a nice-to-have for the operator.

Reading alarms and status

When a cell stops, the pendant screen is the first thing worth looking at, not the cabinet door. It shows the active alarm code, the fault text, the current mode, and the I/O state in one view.

On FANUC controllers the same pendant is where you clear a servo alarm. Hold SHIFT and press RESET, and on many alarms the robot will move in the opposite direction while you hold SHIFT, so you can pull the axis back off the obstruction yourself. On ABB, the equivalent is the fault list and reset under RobotWare.

Troubleshooting guides covers the alarm-first path, and FANUC robot alarm codes maps the codes you are likely to meet.

The deadman switch is why your robot stops when you let go

Two controls on the pendant are safety devices, not convenience features.

The emergency stop button is a hardwired, self-latching stop. Press it and the robot stops regardless of what the controller is doing. Releasing it does not restart anything, you need a deliberate reset.

The enabling device (also called the deadman switch, or three-position enabling switch) sits on the back of the pendant and has three positions.

Only the middle position allows motion. Release the pendant or squeeze it all the way down and the robot stops. That behaviour is deliberate: it catches both the operator who lets go while distracted and the operator who flinches and squeezes hard when something goes wrong.

• Released, not pressed: robot motion disabled
• Middle, half pressed: robot motion enabled at reduced speed
• Fully pressed, to the end: robot motion disabled

ISO 10218-1 covers the robot itself and, in its current third edition (ISO 10218-1:2025, published February 2025), the three-position enabling device is no longer an informative appendix. Its requirements sit in the normative text of Chapter 5, at clause 5.5.4, and the manual speed cap is unchanged at 250 mm/s of tool centre point speed. The same clause structure also means the 2011 numbering still appears in a lot of field documentation, so both are worth knowing: in the 2011 edition the pendant controls sat at 5.8, with motion control at 5.8.2 and the enabling device at 5.8.3.

Two functions, and they are independent. The emergency stop removes hazardous motion across the cell. The enabling device is an operational control that permits reduced-speed motion only while held. ABB documents the IRC5 emergency stop circuit at Performance Level d, Category 3 in its product specification 3HAC047400.

One point worth stating plainly because it shows up on real machines: taping or wedging the enabling switch is a serious violation. A pendant that only works because the switch is held down is a pendant with no safety function, and it will not pass an audit. If your cell needs the robot to move while nobody is holding the pendant, the answer is a different operating mode or a properly designed fixture, not a modified switch.

What is inside a teach pendant, and which part fails first

Different brands look different, but the structure is the same set of parts.

Display. Newer units are touchscreens. ABB's DSQC3120A (SxTPU4) is a 10.1 inch capacitive touch panel, while the earlier DSQC679 used a 7 inch TFT. Older pendants from the 2000s still use a small LCD with a physical keypad.

Buttons and keypad. The most common failure by volume, because these parts take the most abuse. Arrow keys, function keys, and numeric keys get pressed thousands of times a shift, and the membrane or keycap underneath eventually stops registering. Wear shows up first on the keys used most.

Emergency stop and enabling device. Both are safety devices and both are wear items. The enabling switch in particular is a mechanical sub-assembly with contacts that wear, and worn contacts produce intermittent faults that look like controller problems.

Cable and connector. This is where most field failures actually occur, and the reason is physical rather than electronic. The pendant cable is dragged, bent, and pinched every day, and it flexes hardest right at the strain relief where it enters the pendant body. Internal conductors break and connections become intermittent long before the screen or the electronics fail.

FANUC's own controller maintenance manual (B-82725EN-2/06, Robot Series R-30iA Mate Controller) lists checking the teach pendant cable for excessive twisting as part of daily operator checks, and documents the combined enable switch and DEADMAN switch operating logic. That tells you the manufacturer treats the cable as the highest-wear item on the pendant.

Replacement cables are sold separately from the pendant unit itself on most platforms, so a dead pendant cable does not have to mean a dead pendant.

What our own purchasing records show

Most of what we sell under the heading "teach pendant" is not a complete pendant. This is our own purchase and inquiry data, not a market estimate, so it is worth stating plainly.

Between December 2025 and August 2026 we bought 49 complete teach pendants across 22 purchase lines. The single most requested part number in that period was ABB's 3HAC028357-001, the DSQC679, which accounted for 32 of the 49 units. Yaskawa's JZRCR-YPP01-1 and KUKA's 00-291-556 (smartPAD-2) were the next most frequent.

Looking across everything that came in under the teach pendant heading, 42 percent was complete units, 36 percent was sub-assemblies such as screens, keypads, main boards, joysticks and housings, and 22 percent was pendant cable and line sets. In other words, more than half of what arrives at our desk as a teach pendant request turns out to be a part rather than a whole unit. That is why the cable and the keypad are the first things worth checking, and why quoting a complete pendant when only a screen is dead is the expensive answer.

By brand, ABB accounted for 237 of the 379 parts we purchased in that window, KUKA for 59, and FANUC and Yaskawa 14 each. ABB's share reflects how many IRC5 and OmniCore cells are still running, and it is also why the DSQC679 and the current DSQC3120A (SxTPU4) both show up so often in pendant enquiries.

What our customers actually ask for, and what actually sells

Purchasing tells you what we hold. Our own inquiry log tells you what buyers ask for, and it is a different picture again.

Between January and September 2026 we logged 1,834 customer inquiries across 1,159 part numbers. 188 of those inquiry records, covering 116 distinct pendant part numbers, were about teach pendants or their sub-assemblies. That is roughly one in ten of the inquiries we handle, spread over ABB for 78 percent, KUKA for 19 percent, and Yaskawa for the rest.

The most requested pendant part numbers in that period were ABB's 3HAC028357-001, the DSQC679, with 22 inquiry records, ABB's 3HAC031683-001 pendant cable with 19, KUKA's 00-291-556 smartPAD-2 with 9, and ABB's 00-168-334 pendant sub-assembly with 6. The cable on its own draws more inquiries than most complete pendants, which fits the wear pattern described above.

Our shop listings add the conversion side. In the last twelve months, pendant and pendant sub-assembly listings recorded 99 completed transactions and 223 units, out of 718 transactions and 3,047 units across everything we list. Pendants therefore take a larger share of transactions than of units, which is what you would expect from a repair part that a cell buys once rather than a consumable. Within that, the DSQC679 (3HAC028357-001) accounts for 17 transactions and 31 units, the ABB pendant cable 3HAC031683-001 for 4 transactions and 15 units, KUKA's smartPAD-2 for 2 and 3, and Yaskawa's JZRCR-YPP01-1 for 2 and 2.

Two things follow from reading the two records side by side. The models customers ask about most often are not always the models that convert fastest, and a large share of pendant enquiries are resolved by supplying the failed sub-assembly rather than a complete unit.

How the pendant talks to the controller

The signal path is short and it runs over a dedicated connection:

1. You press a key or move the joystick on the pendant.
2. The pendant sends that input to the controller over the pendant cable.
3. The controller runs the motion and safety logic.
4. The servo amplifiers drive the axes.
5. The pendant receives position, alarm, and I/O data back and shows it on the screen.

Everything is real time, so a communication fault is felt immediately as a pendant that will not connect, shows a boot error, or sits on a screen with no controller status.

The connection type matters when you replace a unit. ABB's FlexPendant runs on a proprietary serial bus to the CPU and needs a cable whose pinout matches the pendant generation. FlexPendant cables are not interchangeable between the DSQC679 and the DSQC3120A (SxTPU4).

Every major brand calls it something different

We stock the units themselves and the sub-assemblies that fail: ABB FlexPendant, FANUC operator panels, KUKA smartPAD, and Yaskawa operator panels, plus the repair parts behind each of them.

The operating logic differs enough that a programmer moving between brands needs retraining, even though the physical workflow of jog, record, and run is the same.

Teach pendant, controller, and operator panel are three different things

A common question is whether a pendant can replace an operator panel. They are not interchangeable. The operator panel carries the signals needed to start a cycle in automatic mode, while the pendant carries the manual motion controls. You need both, and each has its own spare part line.

How to identify which teach pendant you have, before you order anything

Most mismatched orders come down to checking one dimension when three matter. The fastest way to avoid them is to read three labels in order.

1. Read the pendant label. The pendant type number is printed on the label on the back of the unit or inside the battery compartment. For ABB this is the form number, for example DSQC3120A (SxTPU4). Write it down exactly as printed, including the suffix in brackets.
2. Read the controller nameplate. The controller model plate is on the front of the cabinet. ABB controllers read IRC5 or IRC5 Compact, FANUC controllers read R-30iB or R-30iA Mate, KUKA controllers read KRC4 or KRC5, and Yaskawa controllers read XRC, NX, DX or MRC.
3. Read the software version from the pendant menu. This is the dimension that gets skipped. ABB's SxTPU4 FlexPendant checks the connected RobotWare or RobotControl version and may request an update, while the earlier DSQC679 runs on a different software baseline and is not automatically compatible with it.

Then check the cable and its length, because the cable is ordered separately from the unit. The connector differs across families, and ABB's FlexPendant cable is subject to a minimum bending radius of 10 times the cable diameter, so a route that looks tidy can still be the reason a cable fails early.

The order below is what we walk through with customers before we quote anything.

What to check before you order a pendant or pendant repair part

If you can answer four things, we can quote a matching unit or the correct sub-assembly without a back and forth.

1. The robot model and controller model. For example, IRB 2600 with an IRC5 controller.
2. The pendant model or part number. The number on the label is enough. A serial number alone also works.
3. What is actually wrong. A blank screen, a pendant that will not connect, keys that do not register, an enabling device that faults, a cable that is cut or intermittent.
4. What you need. A complete unit, or a specific part such as the display, keypad overlay, emergency stop switch, enabling device, main board, or cable.

Send those four and we will confirm the match, tell you whether the part or the whole unit is the sensible route, and reply within 24 hours. Diagnostic checks are free, and if the root cause is not a part we will say so rather than sell you one.

Send us the details and we will confirm the match: Request a Quote

How we match a pendant before we quote you

Once the label information comes in, this is the order we work through, and it is short enough to do with the pendant on the bench and the controller door open.

We check the unit against the controller generation first. The controller generation narrows the compatible pendant types far more than the brand name does, because one brand covers several pendant generations.

We check the software compatibility separately. This is what catches the mismatch where a newer pendant boots on an older controller and then fails to communicate.

We check the cable as its own part. The cable carries its own part number and its own length, and it is ordered separately from the unit. If the connector type or the length does not match, a correct pendant still arrives unusable.

We use the symptom to decide the scope. A blank screen, a pendant that will not connect, keys that do not register, an enabling device that faults, a cable that is cut or intermittent. The symptom decides whether we quote the whole unit or one sub-assembly.

We do not ask for more than this before we can start, and we do not quote a part we cannot match. If the root cause turns out not to be a part, we say so rather than sell you one.

How to reduce pendant failures on a busy cell

A pendant is a wear item, and most of its failures come from three things: the cable being abused, the keypad being hammered, and the safety switches ageing. All three are manageable.

Route the cable so it does not work. The cable should reach the pendant without carrying the weight of the pendant, without a tight bend, and without being pinched between the robot and a fixture. ABB's requirement of a 10 times cable diameter minimum bending radius is a useful number to design against.

Check the cable during daily rounds. FANUC's maintenance manual puts the pendant cable on the daily operator check list for twisting. It takes seconds and it catches the failure before it becomes a stopped cell.

Keep a spare cable, not just a spare pendant. Cable failure is more likely than screen failure on most platforms, and a cable is a much simpler part to swap than a pendant. If you run the same robot model across multiple cells, holding one cable per cell removes the most common single cause of an afternoon of downtime.

Inspect the enabling device if motion behaves strangely. Intermittent failures that come and go, or a robot that will not jog until the pendant is re-seated, point at the switch contacts or the connector rather than at the controller.

Keep the pendant out of oil and coolant. The keypad membrane and the display are not sealed against most shop fluids.

Questions engineers ask about robot teach pendants

What is a robot teach pendant used for?

It is the handheld interface between a person and the robot. It jogs axes for setup, records taught positions, writes and edits programs, and displays alarms and I/O status. Because it is the only manual control on most cells, losing it removes the ability to create or modify a program.

Why does my robot stop when I release the deadman switch?

That is the switch working as designed. The enabling device permits motion only while held in its middle position. Release it or squeeze it fully and the robot stops. If the robot stops when you are holding it correctly and in the middle position, the switch contacts, the cable, or the connector are the likely causes rather than the operator.

Can I fit a pendant from another brand or model?

Not as a rule. The unit is tied to a controller generation and its software, and the cable pinouts differ across families, so a pendant from another brand or another generation may connect but fail to communicate. Send us the part number and the controller model and we will confirm the match instead of leaving you to find out at the bench.

How is a pendant different from the controller?

The pendant is the handheld operator device for manual work. The controller is the cabinet unit that runs the programs, applies the safety logic, and drives the servo amplifiers. You need the controller for the cell to run at all, and you need the handheld unit to create and adjust what the controller runs.

Which part fails first?

The cable, followed by the keypad and the safety switches. The cable fails from physical wear at the strain relief, the keypad from repeated key presses, and the emergency stop and enabling device from contact wear. The display is usually the last part to go. Our own records point the same way: across everything that reaches us as a teach pendant request, more than half is a sub-assembly or a cable rather than a complete unit, and the pendant cable drew more customer inquiries in 2026 than most complete pendants did.

What do you need from me to quote a pendant or pendant repair part?

The robot model, the controller model, the pendant part number, and a short description of the symptom. A serial number alone is enough for us to start. If you are not sure whether you need the whole unit or one part, tell us what the pendant does and does not do, and we will tell you what to order.

Can I ask a technical question without ordering anything?

Yes. Diagnostic checks are free and we will tell you when the root cause is not a part at all. If a pendant is not the problem, we will say that too.

Why does my pendant show a communication error after a cable change?

A pendant communication error after a cable change points at the cable or the connector rather than the pendant electronics, in this order: the connector is not fully seated, the cable is the wrong type or the wrong length for that controller family, or the cable is bent tighter than its minimum bending radius. ABB specifies a minimum bending radius of 10 times the cable diameter for FlexPendant cables, and a visually tidy route can still break the spec. Check the seating and the routing before you replace the pendant itself.

Where to source teach pendants and pendant repair parts

We supply complete pendants and the sub-assemblies that fail, for ABB, FANUC, KUKA and Yaskawa, and we support you remotely: your engineers are on site, we read the evidence you send and match the part. ABB teach pendant repair parts, FANUC teach pendant repair parts, KUKA smartPAD repair parts and Yaskawa pendant repair parts cover the components that come apart rather than the whole unit.

Send us the robot model, the controller model, and the pendant part number and we will confirm the match, then reply with a quote within 24 hours.

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