Hello all.
Thanks again for the excellent help. It's good to know the cable wiring required for these units, and I know that the handshaking requirements will be different on the PC end than on the Fanuc end. On the PC end, we can set up whatever we want, but on the Fanuc end, it's going to want to see whatever it's set up for.
But I think everyone is missing the real problem that we're having here. It's not that we're having errors or problems doing an upload - it's that we can't even get the control into the mode to try to do an upload. We literally cannot figure out how to tell the control to accept an upload. Imagine this:
We've got the perfect cable and the software is set up on our PC just right. Everything should work. But, we don't know how to tell the Fanuc to do an upload. We really can't even start testing whether or not the cable is correct or our settings are right because we cannot get to any menu that lets us try to do an upload! I'd expect to get to some menu that will let us enter a name for the "new" program or at least get to some point where it says something like "push the X button to begin uploading" or something like that. But alas, as we go through the steps in the manual, we get to a place where it says "Key 3 = 1" and we can't get to anything beyond that in their instructions because we don't know what "Key 3 = 1" means or refers to.
I'm sure this is something really basic and simple. So simple and basic that nobody can believe we're actually hung up at that point, but it's true. We can't get the Fanuc to TRY to accept an upload. The hardware may be perfect (then again, maybe not) but we will never know until we figure out how to get into the menu that lets us try to do an upload.
We have done downloads to the PC because when we follow the steps in the book to get into that mode, it does just what we'd expect. But that darn "Key 3 = 1" has us stopped.
We have looked extensively, and there is no key or keyhole or anthing that we can see as being the elusive "Key 3". Could it be a bit in a parameter? Might it be a dipswitch on a PC board? We don't have a clue.
Our only hope is that someone with a 20T or similar control will see this and know immediately what the book is talking about.
I know we're going to feel really dumb once someone tells us what to do
In any case, I still want to thank everyone for their input on this. Knowing how to set up the cable will prove valuable once we get to the point of being able to operate the control and get it into the upload mode. At that point, we will need to be sure that the cable is correctly configured.
Then again, maybe the control knows that the cable is wrong and won't even let us try - but that seems like a longshot. Still, I might build us a cable as you've suggested just in case that does somehow "unlock" things and let the control go into the menu we need. But what is "Key 3"??
I'll give that a try anyhow.
Thanks again everyone.
Sigmo