USB Wireless Bluetooth on PC CNC Controls

[WayneHill]

Hi All,

I added a USB bluetooth WiFi dongle to a Mazak Nexus control. The machines program directory is mapped on a bluetooth enabled Network PC located on a bench close by. It is cool to see the programs moved WiFi to the control. Will be adding this communication setup to more machines soon.

It would be great if machine builders made bluetooth a standard on their controls.

Heck, you can even use a bluetooth cell phone to transfer programs to your CNC control.

[the4thseal]

Is this similar to using a bluetooth printer dongle? If so I thought that there would timing issues? Sounds great though, good job!

[psychomill]

Cool that you got the blue tooth to work.

In our shop, we're already wireless though for several years. Bluetooth would probably be a more cost effective alternative. Wasn't possible back then though... and still not since many machines still aren't PC controls. So, back to the wireless transceivers.....

[WayneHill]

The new controls from Mazak do not have serial ports. They have two USB ports.

[WayneHill]

Originally Posted by the4thseal Is this similar to using a bluetooth printer dongle? If so I thought that there would timing issues? Sounds great though, good job!

The bluetooth network driver is used to transfer the files direct to the hard drive. The parallel port is not used in this application.