Acramatic 850sx serial port modes (with pics)

[upcraft]

I have a Acramatic 850 control that refuses to communicate via serial port that I have been called in to look at.

Cable between PC and machine is tested and is good. Running a full handshake cable which we can get perfect communications on between a laptop and the desktop PC intended to communicate with this CNC.

I ran continuity checks on the cable running inside the machine between the processor boards HD-15 connector and the external DB-25 connector in case it was shorted out or broken and this wire is fine.

When I boot up the CNC an alphabet series spits out to the PC "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ" in 9600-7-n-1 com.

I am able to easily edit the COM settings in machine setup and I have tried using the default 9600-7-n-1 protocol level 1 and 2 (hardware or Xon-Xoff handshake)

That's it though. No communications once the controller boots up.
going into terminal emulation on the control and no characters come in.
Trying to do a transfer to the Line and not a single ascii character comes through on the serial port of the PC. (I have a utility that shows every bit sent or received on the computer and lets me send any ASCII code)

Tried sending a NULL (hex 00) when initiating a file transfer and no response until the controller times out.

I'm wondering if the machine somehow got switched to RS-423 mode as it appears from the documentation that the DAMP processor board on this control can be set for either RS-232 standard serial or RS-423 serial. It refers me to "For additional information refer to DATA LINE MANUAL 7-000-0690AN" which seems to be the only documentation I do not have for this machine. Otherwise it seems like they have a complete set of manuals for the machine and the controller which is rare for a machine of this vintage. (1994)

Anyone know more about the specifics of Acramatic 850sx control settings?
Anyone know what the 4 service switches on the DAMP card do and what position they would normally be in?
Any jumpers on the DAMP board if I removed it from the backplane that would apply to this situation?

I'm missing some secret here and before I start to suspect a bad DAMP board and go calling Siemens or searching for used parts I want to make sure it's not just a setting somewhere or some magic ascii string needs to be sent from the DNC software to communicate.

The machine used to communicate I'm told but I'm also told the former operator and only guy who knew how it worked quit and "took the cable with him". Now I'm totally confused by this statement. Why anyone would care about a cable unless it was an RS-423 converter I fail to see why there would be anything special going on there.

If I had an RS-423 converter I would probably be hooking that up to see if it's stuck in this alternate cabling mode. As fate would have it I threw out an old RS-485 converter I had which was missing a power supply recently though I'm not sure it's the same thing as RS-423 anyhow. RS-422, RS-423, RS-485 all seem to be slightly different differential / multi-drop serial protocols and I'm not too sure they are compatible in any way shape or form. The manual I have at least lists the RS-423 pinout on the aux connector of the DAMP board which is something if I need to travel that route.

Goofy serial guru needed. Thanks.

Click on image for large version (Opens in new window/tab)

[advt001]

I had a tough time getting my 850sx to dnc. I found a company called control-link systems that had me up and running in 15 mins.

[upcraft]

Originally Posted by advt001 I had a tough time getting my 850sx to dnc. I found a company called control-link systems that had me up and running in 15 mins.

Might consider giving them a call. Any links? (Google finds those terms a bit too generic to get good results for a specific company)

[mike_Kilroy]

Know a guy named Tom Henning at Henning Machine Tool with lots of spare parts and experience on the 850. u might try him? 316 290 9470

[advt001]

Upcraft, google "machinelink" .The contact I have is Guy Hughes iirc.

[jwilczek]

I know on mine it will only work with the machine set to 2400 8e1 and the pc set to 2400 7e1 , really makes no sense to me but I think I tried every different combo.

Joe

[tward74]

I have a Sabre 1250 with the 850 SX controller. Are you trying to dnc through the data line port on the side of the electrical panel or are you trying the tape reader port on the side of the controller? I cannot use the port on the side of the electrical panel, but my controller port works fine. All I had to do is flip all of the switches to the off position. When you do that the machine thinks that the data line is the tape reader, so when you send a program to the machine, make sure on the 850 controller you chose "line" for your "from" source.

Also I use XT16 for comunications between the pc and the machine. It is an old dos program that was sent to me from Cincinnatti. I can send it to you, just need an email.

If you want to talk to the people that I talk to for issues with the machine, try calling Maintenance Technologies @ 800-934-0735.

[Pophamrt1]

Cincinnati/Siemens developed a full-blown communications software program referred to as dcdnc. Full up, download, unlimited drip, etc. As you've found, the protocols for the 850SX are a bit odd and there are also some buffer i/o issues to deal with when linking to windows. The program addresses all the cabling, serial issues, and protocols with full instructions including cable diagrams for pinouts. Best of all, its free and its Cincinnati's solution to communications so its taylored to our machines. You can find it in the Yahoo group's files section.

[ThePainter]

You might want to check the -5vdc test point on the DIMP board - that's critical to the serial channel operation.
-5vdc = good
0vdc = blown v-reg chip on the motherboard
-12vdc = blown v-reg chip AND blown xmit/rcvr devices on the DAMP

A standard null-modem cable should work - nothing fancy there.

If using 'ASCII' setting on the Device Parameter page, make sure the PC parameters match the A850 settings.

If using rs-358:
Set the 850 to 8 data, 1 stop bit, no parity
Set the PC to 7, 1, even parity
Protocols 1 and 2 refer to hardware or software flow control respectively - that also has to match the PC.
If you want to check the serial port output, install a loopback plug on the AUX port, set the control to Level 2 protocol, go to the Terminal screen, and start typing characters. You should see double characters (the one transmitted and the one received).
The loopback has 3 jumpers:
pin 2 to 3
pin 4 to 5
pin 6 to 20

Any luck??

[sauli]

here is the simple solution
change the MTBCOMM parameter no 110 to value - "37"
make sure that you have % sign at the end of program in your PC
in your computer and machine keep following parameters
2400/7/E/2

in your machine keep the level 1
add RT - yes

in your computer send setting:
just software handshake, no hardware handshake
in your computer receive setting
software and hardware handshake