Hi guys, looking for some guidance here. I am currently in charge of hooking up our CNC machine at work to a PC, and getting the communication working. I have one small glitch that I just noticed however. The laptop that is being set aside as the communication machine, does not have an RS232 port, only a parallel printer port. Is there software I can get that will allow the communication through this port? I will be using Mastercam X3 to generate the gcode if that matters at all. Thank you.
Some software will work with a USB to RS232 converter, they do not run to that much.
Al.
CNC, Mechatronics Integration and Custom Machine Design (Skype Avail).
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
Albert E.
As Al said, you can buy a USB to serial converter and communicate through that if you have an open USB port. If not, your laptop probably has a PCMCIA slot. You can get a PCMCIA to serial adapter. They're more expensive than the USB to serial, but I've had better luck with the PCMCIA. Quatech, SIIG, and others have 1 or 2 port serial adapters for $50 - $125. AFAIK, there is no way to communicate through a PC parallel port to a CNC serial port. Don't even hook up a cable between them.
Ok, guess I just needed confirmation of that. I had looked at the Serial slot cards and figured that would be the way it would be in the end. Not a big deal really. I appreciate your help.
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