No floppy or USB on Mini Mill

[blgmachine]

Just bought a Mini Mill without floppy or usb.Can i add this without going through Haas.Has anyone done this

[Donkey Hotey]

Nope, you'll still need the unlock code. Either cough up the money, buy one of the USB-serial devices and hang it on the side of the machine, or just slave a cheap PC to the side of your machine and use that.

[Geof]

You may be stuck with hooking PC up to the serial port as suggested depending on the age of the machine. The first MiniMills had the floppy as an option but arouind 2006 (2007? maybe) the floppy was discontinued and only usb was available. I am not sure that usb can be retrofitted, the floppy could be retrofitted but you may find Haas no longer carries it.

[HuFlungDung]

There is nothing wrong with the RS232 option, in fact it is much more reliable than the floppy drive and faster, too, considering all the fussing trying to get a good file onto a good floppy and then trying to get it off again. I used to tear my hair out trying to do floppy file transfers. At any random moment, the disk would suddenly become unreadable by either the Haas or any PC.

I personally don't think a USB drive is a giant leap ahead of a floppy except that it might hold larger files. You've still got the safe plug/unplug thing to go through with Windows, and perhaps the Haas as well.

Quite often, I find when I upload a new program, that I forgot this, or that, and need to change some small thing and re-upload it. That would be a couple of plug/unplug scenarios to wade through. I'd rather just resend the file on RS232. That is just my opinion. It may be different if you constantly handle very large files, because RS232 can be slow if your controller can only handle 38400 baud. I'm not sure but USB may be quicker in those circumstances to get the file into the control.

[lkenney]

+1 for the RS232.

I have the RS232 PC (and old windows NT machine) networked via Ethernet to our office and CAD/CAM machines. I send the G Code to that machine as a mounted network drive and then use OneCNC DNC(it is free) to transfer to the machine. If I need to dripfeed the mill from that machine I can. My VF-0 only has 64 K of RAM and I use Truemill for some work. I am running at 19.2 Baud over a 100 ft cable. Works great.

Lowell

[Cartel, LLC]

but do they have cables that are rs-232 on one end and usb on the other? my pc does not have any rs-232 ports. in fact, the last few computers that ive had havent???

[Donkey Hotey]

Yup, they're about $10 on eBay and $20-22 at any consumer electronics store.

[HuFlungDung]

Personally I'd recommend that you install a serial port expansion card in your PC. They are dirt cheap now as well, but you then should not have to worry about correct emulation of a real serial port by some USB software.

[lkenney]

I would agree with HuFlungDung unless you are working off a Laptop. Cost will be the same or very close.

Lowell

[Donkey Hotey]

Very good points. I only own one PC and it's a laptop so I see everything from that point of view. Get a serial card.