dx32 dnc

[Alan bailey]

Can anybody help me DNC from a remote computer to a Bridgeport VMC800 with a DX32 controller? I can DNC from a floppy in the machine or I can download via the RS232 port and DNC off the internal machine harddrive, but I cannot find any info. in the manuals on remote wiring or setup.would appreciate any advice, thanks Al.

[machintek]

Actually what you mentioned is the best way of doing this. Having said that, the obstacle has been how do you get a long program into the CNC. I have installed SUPER floppy drives in place of the regular floppy. These act similar to a ZIP drive. I have put in parallel port zip drives. I have even installed a CDROM (laying it inside the cabinet on a TC-22. But I have a lot of mold shops that have installed LAN cards in their machines running WIN 3.11 for workgroups. This seems to work best allowing fast transfer of large programs and they DNC from the hard drive inside the machine. Remember that these machines run on DOS 6.20 and there was an option sold by BPT that included solid modeling and win 3.1. Never has anything newer been offered. So do not try running XP, 2000, 98 or 95 on these machines. BPT does not support this. Notice (again) that the LAN cards are running Win 3.11 for workgroups.

George W.

[Alan bailey]

Many thanks for the quick response. Will a regular ZIP drive replace the floppy in the CNC as I have a ZIP drive in my computer and that would be a slick way to transfer files? Al.

[machintek]

There were two control versions used on the VMC800. One was a CIB (control in a box) and the other was just a normal motherboard bolted to the electrical cabinet wall. I will assume you have the second one I mentioned. Most Zip drives are IDE devices. The bridgeport had two style mother boards used with the non CIB machines. One had a pile of ISA (black) expansion slots, the other had both ISA and PCI (tan) expansion slots. The first variety had a I/O board plugged into an ISA slot. You need to get a IDE cable that can attach to 2 IDE devices and configure the Zip to a slave using junpers on the Zip drive itself. The Hard drive may need to be configured as a master with a slave. If you have the mother board with the PCI slots, then usually this type have 2 on board IDE connectors. Now you can attach the Zip to the second IDE connector with a ribbon cable or still attach it to the first with the double type and still configuring it to a slave drive.
If you have the CIB variety control, it has a half size industrial mother board. Odds are it has a Disk on a Chip. This is uaually a 8 meg device. It may not have enough room for some 3D programs. I would get a laptop hard drive and attach it to the IDE port and disable the Disk on a chip. also you can use the double device cable but there is not enough room in the CIB for a Zip drive. You may need a custom cable built that is lomger and can get to a Zip drive mounted somewhere.
The Super drive will fit in the place of floppy but is an IDE device. Very hard to find DOS drivers for it though.
Consider a parallel port ZIP drive. The parallel port is on the side of the machine and you can place it on top of the electrical cabinet. Very easy and neat. With a CIB machine, I would still use a hard drive or a Disk on a Module and a parallel port Zip drive. Again neat and easy.

George W.

[Alan bailey]

George, if I buy an external ZIP drive and just plug it in either the -A- or LPT1 port will the machine just recognize it and if so woulld I either load the programme to the hard-drive or run directly off of the ZIP? Thanks Al.

[machintek]

I believe you have been playing with a MAC or XP. This machine runs DOS 6.20 and it is not plug and play (pray). You will need to load a DOS driver unless you are running WIN 3.1 which means that you would need a driver for that OS. The last super drive I installed was pulled out about 2 years ago when the hard drive failed and the DOS drivers could not be found anywhere.
The A port is a RS232 port used for serial communication. Very slow to load a large program even at the max speed of 9600 baud.
The printer port is a parallel port. By definition, it can transfer data at a lot faster rate than the serial port.
Neither of these will support DNC. If your programs are not too long, you could compress it (ZIP) and load it to a floppy and transfer it to the hard drive. Compressed it would have to be smaller than 1.44 MB. As a quick solution, I have seen people do this by break up a program to managable pieces.

George W.

[triberman]

We are having trouble sending a file to our dx32 controller, what software/settings are you using?

[NC Cams]

If you have a DOS M/B based box, why not add a CROM???

Asside from packaging, it should not be too bad of a chore. Any DOS box I ever ran could read a CDROM if you loaded the appropriate driver via the AUTEXEC.BAT and the MSCDEX program that runs the CDROM that is generic to DOS.

Haven't seen a program yet that will overrun a CD.

[triberman]

We constantly edit programs with our cad cam software, I'm looking for a way to avoid switching the media disc.

[machintek]

AS a service tech, I carry PROCOMM for DOS on an old laptop. I use 8 data bits, 2 stop bits, no parity, X-ON X-OFF enabled and a matching baud rate.
You will need jumpers on your data cable. 4 to 5 is one. 6 to 8 to 20 is the other jumper. Procomm also works well with FANUC and HEIDENHAIN controls.

George