051216-1212 EST USA
Chris D:
We have two products useful for RS232 communication.
By asking questions about what users are doing, their equipment limitations, their problems, and trying to get some of the whys, we can better direct our discussion of our equipment.
Some of the discussion on our web site is of general use.
www.beta-a2.com or
www.beta-aa.com . The -aa site has little to do with CNC.
We made two mistakes on our HAAS poll. First, I think we discouraged some users from reponding by not making the poll private. From a poll stand point I do not care who answers what so long as it is honest. So this poll is private unless one chooses to provide a response. Second, I did not allow for multiple choices. There may be many shops that operate at multiple baud rates (ours being one because we have old and new HAAS machines), and this information was excluded from the results.
Since newer, by 98, HAAS machines have a 115.2 kbaud maximum capability, and previously 38.2 kbaud, and most other machines top out at 9600 baud to 19.2 kbaud the HAAS poll was put under HAAS because that sort of automatically eliminated other machines.
From talking to service and sales people we got the qualitative response that 9600 baud was most common. So far the polls seem to indicate this.
This poll, hopefully excluding HAAS, is showing a surprising number of responses at 115.2 kbaud.
Different users have different types of RS232 problems. The dominate problem is how to wire one RS232 to another. This I conclude from the large number of Google hits we get with questions relating to wiring.
To try to see what users consider to be their problems is the reason for the poll with no categories and the requirement for a written response. So far no responses.
We know some users operate at 9600 baud simply because the salesman told them to use it. Others operate at 2400 or 4800 because of handshake or noise problems. Some are drip feeding, running at a lower baud rate than the CNC max capability, and their machine runs in jerks because of starvation. Many do not want to solve their problem. Others have total inability to communicate with RS232 because of noise. Then some have had their equipment or parts damaged because of ground problems.
Broadly speaking there is overall a great lack of understanding about RS232 and serial communication, grounding, and noise.
Only those that have had thousands of dollars of damaged equipment care about isolation. Sort of after the fact.
Biggest interest is high baud rates, long cable, and large files.
Excluding the 115.2 kbaud catergory the HAAS poll is a fairly good normal distribution, visual guess. This poll so far is tending to be a flatter distribution.
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