Need Help!- upgrading Fanuc 12m to 18i

[jaideepshinh]

Hi guys,

I have a fanuc 12m controller on a 6 axis machine which is no longer suiting my needs due to its speed limitations. (Baud rate is limited to 9600 and memory is very limited)

My knowledge is very limited in this field, so please excuse me for any fundamental errors.

As i am a little cash strapped, i was wondering what my cheapest alternative is. I am not too keen on running mach3 as my operators are not comfortable with it. Also, my experiences with this controller has not been the best on other machines of ours.

So here goes. My question is- can we hook up a fanuc 18i controller to the drives and all of a 12m? or will i have to change the drives/ motors as well? if the drives dont just plug in, are the basic electronic signals the same just repacked in different connectors, or are the interfaces all together different?

Also, is there any way by which i can speed up my 12m's communication speed? like changing a network card (if any)?

Thanks in advance!

[memoryman]

first, the part program memory on the Fanuc 12 can be increased to 2 megabytes (we sell that for US$1895). No Fanuc control (maybe the iB?) can have more. The baudrate is not limited to 9,600 but with more memory,the programs can be loaded in the backgrounds so this is not an issue.
The controls made after 1990 are different so that you would have to replace the motors and drives too.
What other controls do you use?

[jaideepshinh]

Thank you for replying!

My technical person says that when he increases the baud rate beyond 9600, we get a buffer overflow error. Are we doing something incorrect? Just for the record, ours is a 6 axis Shin Nippon Koki machine.

He also says that 2MB is not enough as our part programs are bigger- apparently we already have 2MB of memory on our controller.

What do you feel is our best option? my feeling is that we're messing up somewhere with the baud rate thing.

Another thing i was thinking of doing was picking up a used controller +drives+ motors set up in order to save costs.

On our other machines we are using Sinumerik 802, 810D, Mach 3, Heidenhain TNC 355 and TNC 151.

Originally Posted by memoryman first, the part program memory on the Fanuc 12 can be increased to 2 megabytes (we sell that for US$1895). No Fanuc control (maybe the iB?) can have more. The baudrate is not limited to 9,600 but with more memory,the programs can be loaded in the backgrounds so this is not an issue. The controls made after 1990 are different so that you would have to replace the motors and drives too. What other controls do you use?

[memoryman]

What to do depends on your budget.
The buffer overflow problem may be solvable, depending on length of cable and software settings on the computer.
Would DNC work? It is possible that a high speed buffer is a solution; I am looking into that possibility.

[jaideepshinh]

Thank your for your reply!

The person running my machine is currently using it in a DNC configuration- but even then he says he has to limit the baud rate to 9600. As you're saying, i'll check on the length of the cable- it appears to be unnecessarily long to me; it must be about 20m-30m in length.

I googled high speed buffer and found something which might be useful. the link is as follows:
CNC Controller

Is this the same thing you're referring to?

I really appreciate your help. Thanks to you i am learning new things i probably would never have found out about on my own.

Originally Posted by memoryman What to do depends on your budget. The buffer overflow problem may be solvable, depending on length of cable and software settings on the computer. Would DNC work? It is possible that a high speed buffer is a solution; I am looking into that possibility.

[memoryman]

A high speed buffer board was available for most controls- it allows higher baud rates. But your control probably cannot use this.
Which model drives do your have- analog or digital? We are working on a plug compatible replacement control but it will be later next year before it becomes available.
Can you drip feed?

[tmbruno28]

I don't know anything on fanuc 12, but
just one question,
did you have on your mother board a blue flat connector with 50 pins ?it is use to connect a tape reader... and you can found an emulator, it is not expansive .... That's working very well on system 10 and 11....

[memoryman]

That would be a BTR and refer to my drip feed question.

[jaideepshinh]

@Memoryman: I dont really know the difference between Drip feed and conventional DNC. as of now, we are running DNC mode. To the best of my knowledge, we have not tried drip feeding. that is done through the DNC software, am i right?

Does drip feed also apply to the BTR option tmbruno28 is referring to?

@tmbruno28: The BTR sounds like a good option for me if the other options dont work out- my controller does have a tape reader which i believe can be emulated as you are saying.

I still feel quite convinced that we're doing something terribly wrong because of which the controller isnt able to accept the data. Drip feed looks like the solution to me- i'll study the differences and get back asap.

Thanks for your help and i think i'll need a lot more before i finally get somewhere.

[memoryman]

DNC (Distributed Numerical Control) is usually the same as drip feeding.
DNC can include using the computer as a server. Drip feeding substitutes for a tape reader and uses the tape reader mode and connections.
Remember, the 18ia control you want to use, also has a 2meg memory limit.
What servos does you machine use?

[jaideepshinh]

Dear Memoryman,

I'm sorry for going silent for so long. I've just spent some time at the factory, and the things i observed/questions which have arisen with the machine are:

1. The programs we are using are going up to the range of 5-6 MB
2. We don't know how much memory there is in the controller. How do i check? i could possible buy a memory module from you if we don't have 2 MB.
3. Does DNC use the system memory? (the 2MB we're planting).
4. The controller is having to 'wait' for the program often when we run the feed rate above 320. The lower the feed rate the less is this problem, but as a consequence the machine slows down.
5. When we increase the baud rate, the controller gives an error which translates to a buffer overrun. As per the parameter settings, the maximum baud rate attainable is 9600.

What are your views?

[memoryman]

you should be able to see the used + remaining memory amount on the program directory screen; this may be in pages. You can also look at the side of the BMU board and see what ir says: 4Mx4= 16 Mbits (2 Mbytes).
In DNC or dripfeed mode the sytem does not use the BMU, so you can longer programs than installed memory can hold. The Buffer overflow problem may be solved by changing the buffer size setting in your computer communication software.
You have to replace drives and motors if you want to switch to a much newer Fanuc control; the signals are NOT compatible.
Let me know what software you use for communicating.