Originally Posted by bborb  Instead of hyperterminal, go to
http://www.milltronics.net/service/download.htm
and download one of the mill demo programs. Install it on your PC and use it as your communication program. Both your machine AND PC will probably use COM1. Then match the RS232 parameters and you're ready to go. Just send from one and receive at the other.
HTH
Bart |
This is what I did also. Although, I think the demo version only allows program names up to O0010 as I recall.
It seems to work reliably with less archaic complexity of HyperTerminal or Kermit. The disappointing thing is that the control will not fetch from a PC as a terminal on its own. This should be called SNEAKERware, not software. You will wear out your shoes walking back and forth between setting one end or the other to receive and use the other end for send. Poorly written software IMHO. Even my old BP EZTrak did send and receive from the control with no fuss via an early 80's EZlink program!
In other words, you set the Milltronics control to receive O####, then walk over the the PC and send the named file over. Visa-versa with setting the PC to receive and walking back to the control to send a program to the PC. What a freak'n un-necessary hassle! I did find that if you set the control or PC to receive a file name(I,E. O1111), but send a different file name(O2222), the sent file, regardless of its original name, takes on the receive ends file name.
My VKM3 is a Centurion I, so I am not sure this all applies.
First I used a program called Windmill on the desktop PC to verify the cable integrity and that there was serial data being sent from the control to the PC. Windmill still needs all the settings set as per the control to make the connection sync. The first try did not receive a string, so I needed to swap pins 2 and 3, which did prove out the cable on the second try.
Secondarily, there were some parameters that I changed that may or may not be required. Go to the UTIL-CTRL softkey.
The changes I made in the *****Serial Port Data***** list were as follows:
Tape start Character and 037
Tape end Character set to 037 ;some CAM programs send out as beginning and end of file markers. It does not seem to matter with transferring via the SLS offline demo though.
RS-232 buffer to 256 ;this supposedly helps speed things up a bit?
Line feed in change CR=YES
End of Block send CR/LF=YES ; I was not sure either of these need to be set, but in HyperTerminal, the test text was all one group and not lined up in line numbers.
RS-232 EOF Character=037 ; Again, it does not seem to matter, but one old CAM program I have, puts the "%" character in there as a part of the post.
Some of the control version software may have an "ANY" softkey, which allows DOS file names. This may also show up if Full DOS file names is set to YES. Otherwise the only file names that can be read by the control are of the format O#### ( a capital letter O followed by a 4 digit number) with no extension. If your CAM package appends a .TXT, rename the file to remove the .TXT (I.E. O0001).
I am also looking into a network card, but that is a bit more complicated to set up from scratch in DOS. If I ever get some time and/or can find a complete proven procedure, I can document what I did to make it all work. This will basically use the PC as an external drive(P:\) so that all the programs stored on the PC can be fetched from the control directly....as it should be!
DC