No talky

[Captain Midnigh]

I'm having trouble connecting to my computer. I have been tutored throught the proceedure, but I still have nothing. Partner 4, correct cable, Hyperterminal. Could someone help with a step by step? Help.

[bborb]

Instead of hyperterminal, go to
http://www.milltronics.net/service/download.htm
and download one of the mill demo programs. Install it on your PC and use it as your communication program. Both your machine AND PC will probably use COM1. Then match the RS232 parameters and you're ready to go. Just send from one and receive at the other.
HTH
Bart

[Captain Midnigh]

It's been six months and I still can't get this thing working. I'm going to install a serial port in the computer and try hooking up to that.

[bborb]

I sense your frustration, but I notice you've let your thread lay dormant all this time, many may have thought you got it fixed. You should continue to post to this thread things you've tried and what you've seen on the PC or the Centurion control...... alarms on the control? unreadable characters on the PC?
Many forums discusses your same (or similar) problem, a search of the forums will reveal much useful info.
There's a useful check to see if your PC''s serial port is working at:
Fanuc OT communication problem
Read through the entire thread and you'll find how to use HyperTerminal to at least check if your PC is sending text.
If your PC doesn't have a serial port then I suggest you DO install one.
HTH

[captainasty]

I played hell at first to. It's slow, like 1200baud, 7data bits, E parity, 2 stop bits, and NO Xon/Xoff. You have to enter G55 on the control before transfer. G55(from pc - control) G54 (from control - pc). The cen4 has it's own language. Send a program from the control to the pc first, so you can reverse engineer the codes. You WILL NOT have the conversational support when you send a program to it but you can still go through and edit the program with the edit buttons.

[One of Many]

Originally Posted by bborb Instead of hyperterminal, go to http://www.milltronics.net/service/download.htm and download one of the mill demo programs. Install it on your PC and use it as your communication program. Both your machine AND PC will probably use COM1. Then match the RS232 parameters and you're ready to go. Just send from one and receive at the other. HTH Bart

This is what I did also. Although, I think the demo version only allows program names up to O0010 as I recall.

It seems to work reliably with less archaic complexity of HyperTerminal or Kermit. The disappointing thing is that the control will not fetch from a PC as a terminal on its own. This should be called SNEAKERware, not software. You will wear out your shoes walking back and forth between setting one end or the other to receive and use the other end for send. Poorly written software IMHO. Even my old BP EZTrak did send and receive from the control with no fuss via an early 80's EZlink program!

In other words, you set the Milltronics control to receive O####, then walk over the the PC and send the named file over. Visa-versa with setting the PC to receive and walking back to the control to send a program to the PC. What a freak'n un-necessary hassle! I did find that if you set the control or PC to receive a file name(I,E. O1111), but send a different file name(O2222), the sent file, regardless of its original name, takes on the receive ends file name.

My VKM3 is a Centurion I, so I am not sure this all applies.

First I used a program called Windmill on the desktop PC to verify the cable integrity and that there was serial data being sent from the control to the PC. Windmill still needs all the settings set as per the control to make the connection sync. The first try did not receive a string, so I needed to swap pins 2 and 3, which did prove out the cable on the second try.

Secondarily, there were some parameters that I changed that may or may not be required. Go to the UTIL-CTRL softkey.

The changes I made in the *****Serial Port Data***** list were as follows:

Tape start Character and 037
Tape end Character set to 037 ;some CAM programs send out as beginning and end of file markers. It does not seem to matter with transferring via the SLS offline demo though.

RS-232 buffer to 256 ;this supposedly helps speed things up a bit?

Line feed in change CR=YES
End of Block send CR/LF=YES ; I was not sure either of these need to be set, but in HyperTerminal, the test text was all one group and not lined up in line numbers.

RS-232 EOF Character=037 ; Again, it does not seem to matter, but one old CAM program I have, puts the "%" character in there as a part of the post.

Some of the control version software may have an "ANY" softkey, which allows DOS file names. This may also show up if Full DOS file names is set to YES. Otherwise the only file names that can be read by the control are of the format O#### ( a capital letter O followed by a 4 digit number) with no extension. If your CAM package appends a .TXT, rename the file to remove the .TXT (I.E. O0001).

I am also looking into a network card, but that is a bit more complicated to set up from scratch in DOS. If I ever get some time and/or can find a complete proven procedure, I can document what I did to make it all work. This will basically use the PC as an external drive(P:\) so that all the programs stored on the PC can be fetched from the control directly....as it should be!

DC

[One of Many]

Oops!, Now I recall this was an older control. I am not so sure the demo software will be directly compatible with the Centurion IV. That was a different animal as far as I know.



The basics should still apply if the port is functional, but keys and parameters don't.

DC

[bborb]

Captain_Midnigh posted he has a Partner 4 machine. "Partner" is a model of machine (iron) of which I have personally seen a Partner 00, Partner 1, Partner 6, Partner 7, Partner 8, Partner 9, and a Partner 10...... all of which were Milltronics machines.

"Centurion" is a model of control Milltronics has built. I have personally seen a Centurion 1, Centurion 4, Centurion 5, Centurion 6, and a Centurion 7.

We need to know what control Captain Midnigh is working with.

Captainasty and One_of_Many have a safe bet guessing its a Centurion 4, as these were completely different beasts and if it were any other control Captain_Midnigh would probably have the RS232 working by now.

[Ben Colby]

His control is a Centurion 4.
I've been dealing with him for months on this and other issues.
His communication settings are as follows: 7 , even , 2 , and my machine
of the same vintage can't go higher than 600 baud. First character and last
characters are a % sign. Parameter number 86 within the Centurion 4 sets
the buad rate for the machine.

My suggestions are as follows:
Get a computer with a serial port or ports. (This was news to me)
Look in the Windows directory of your pc and find the old Win 3.11 program
"Terminal".
Set the communication settings in "Terminal" to 600 baud, 7, even, 2
Write text file *.txt that contains your program. Make sure there is % as the first and last character of your program.
At the control, go MDI, type G55 enter, then start button.
At the PC in "Terminal" send text file.

This is the way I sent and received until I purchased a CNC/COMM/Editor
program. Hyperterminal didn't work for me because it's baud rate settings
didn't have 600 baud.

Good luck
Ben

[Captain Midnigh]

I will try that, thank you. My computer did not have a serial port. I have been hooking up to the parallel port. That does not work. I purchased a serial port, and installed it. The serial port uses com ports 5 and 6. I think I need to change it to com port 1? I have been working with Hyper-Terminal. I will try Terminal. Thank you for your help. Hopfully I'll hit the magic combination.

[captainasty]

No, just use com5 or com6. What ever one you have the cable connected to.

[Captain Midnigh]

Hyper-Terminal does not have 5 or 6 listed when entering parameters.