Problem- DNC: TV alarm on and buffer full

[NZ_Jase]

Hi guys,

I can see light at the end of what has been a long but rewarding tunnel!

My Mazak that I bought as a project is going, after numerous issues with boards, wiring, blocked lube systems and more issues with boards!

With the help of this forum and others I have got enough info to program manually and do most things I need, and now need to offline program and DNC to the old girl.

It came with a no-name (UMC on the big IC but that's about it) BTR interface and associated wiring, and after figuring out the cabling requirments and what I think are the correct comm settings at the PC end, I have the following happen:

TAPE mode > CYCLE START
LSK LED on, CYCLE START LED on

When I send a short test program from the PC, the buffer LED and alarm LED come on. Alarm code shows a 1 in the TV segment.

The program is just a few lines doing a Return home and G92. I can type the exact same thing into Memory mode and runs fine.

I guess this is Tape Vertical issue?
Is there any way to turn TV check off like more modern Fanuc controls when DNC'ing? (I have an OiM on a mill that I dripfeed and TV check is off)

I have ISO bit in the Settings set to 1, not sure what the others do.

I have 7 data bits, even parity, 2 stop bits, 4800 bps set as this is the only setup that worked when punching a program out. A relative unknown was the null modem cable I had, so I'm about to build another with full hardware handshake and try again, but I doubt it's the cable.

Any and all info appreciated.

Thanks in advance, Jason.

[Dan Fritz]

Jason,

Your control has TV parity checking, but it's usually turned off. Very few people use TV parity checking anymore. TV parity is just checking to see if the number of characters within a block are even or odd. If it's odd, you have to add a space character to make the number of characters even.

If this is a 5T control, move the address LED under the "SET" position, and look for a bit under the "TV" position. It should be "0". If it's not, set it to "0" in MDI and press INPUT. On later controls, the "TVON" bit is on the SETTING screen.

A TH (Tape Horizontal) parity alarm is different. That usually means that you're trying to send the CNC an illegal character, or your baudrate or stop-bits don't match.

[NZ_Jase]

Thanks Dan,

I changed the TV bit in the SET page to 0, solved that alarm.
My Set page is now all 0's apart from ISO being 1.
What do the others do?

Now I have a TH alarm and the buffer LED comes on.

I know you can't send a lower case, decimal point, or pretty much any other character without getting a TH issue, so I tried something real basic:

%
N001G21
%

Still errors and fills the buffer. If I drop the %'s and send N001G21 with or without a line feed it does nothing, same deal with N001G28U0W0. No machine movement, Cycle Start LED stays on, LSK stays on, but no Alarm or buffer LED.

I've attached a pic of the unknown BTR. If the NZ dollar was worth something I'd order one of your units and get on with it, I'm so close to being able to make some parts on this thing it's more frustrating than when I had 6 issues to solve!

Comms settings at the moment are 4800, 7,e,2.

I'll go and try some different baud rates and stop bits and see if that changes anything. Will report back...

Thanks again, Jase.

[Dan Fritz]

We've got a guy in NSW Australia that may be able to help you. His name is Roger Bonnet with Shera Bonnet and Associates, PTY, Ltd. Roger has installed our direct BTR systems on a lot of machines, and he just might have a Fanuc 5 BTR cable in stock. Roger's email address is: rb@shera.com.au

I did some research on that BTR board, but I didn't find the manufacturer. They may be out of business. A few of the Fanuc board repair companies list that BTR board on their "used parts" websites, but they have no information on it either.

[NZ_Jase]

Beat you to him! I emailed John at RYM for BTR pricing and he put me in touch with Roger yesterday. Had a chat to him and got a handle on what is available at what cost. He didn't have one in stock, and pricing is in USD. If our dollar was actually worth something it wouldn't be a very hard decision!

I made some progress with the BTR I have, on powering up some digits are displayed on the LED segment. c9600o is displayed at the moment, but the obvious 9600, 7,e,2 deosn't work. When punching, there is a funny symbol while garbage turns up at the PC. When reading there is a different symbol. I think that a comms setting is the culprit, not the BTR or the 5T operation. I feel I'm making progress, will have another play today...

JL

[Dan Fritz]

The LED display is obviously showing the baudrate of 9600 bits/sec, so try these combinations for "no" parity and "odd" parity. There is also "mark" parity and "space" parity, but those are pretty rare.

9600,e,7,1
9600,n,8,1
9600,n,8,2
9600,o,7,1
9600,o,7,2

For testing the 5T controls, I usually use a program with a bunch of N-numbers, like so:

N001
N002
N003
N004
N005
N006 M30
%

When testing my BTR connections, I usually try to run this program in TAPE mode with the SBK (single block) switch on. Place the address LED under the letter "N", and you should see the display show each N-number as you step through the program.