VM-17 Centurian 6 Networking?

[plane captain]

I have a 1997 VM-17 with C6 control. I would like to set up networking capability. Here is what I have. What do I need to achieve networking?

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[plane captain]

Wrong photos, try these.

[allen mullis]

I'm just curious. I assume you are wanting networking to facilitate large programs. If that is in fact the case, why not install this, Addonics AEDMDISU2 Internal IDE/SATA/USB DigiDrive , Then you will be able to DNC from a SD or CF card up to a 2 Gb program. The crappy thing about DNC via cable is all the handshaking required. First you have to get the program ready and posted, then you have to walk to the machine and get it ready to receive, then you have to go back to the computer and start sending, and back to the machine and run it. Then, if there is a problem, like a tool breaks, you have to do it all over again. With the CF reader it is a one shot deal. Post it, take it to the machine, plug it in and run. Then, if you break a tool, half way into a 3 hour cycle, you can replace it, pick a block number prior to the break, verify to run from there without having to hack up the program. The other thing you will gain is fast transfer times. A 3 MB program should transfer in about 5 sec. I understand that everybody has different needs, Maybe you are running bigger programs, like 3Gb??

[plane captain]

I'm a total noob. I thought networking would be a simple solution for larger files. Sounds like the DigiDrive would be the way to go. Would the install of the Addonics be very difficult?

[allen mullis]

I did one yesterday on a cent 7 machine. Granted, I have done about a dozen, but it took me a total of an hour. It's a lot easier on a cent 7 b/c the hole is already in the side of the panel for it and it is just a matter of plugging everything up, loading the driver, changing the auto exec.bat, and you're done. You will need the dos driver and will likely need to employ sportybob for some help. I have only done them on single board computer machines because I have upgraded all my cent 5 and 6 machines to modern SBC instead of the slower 386 and 486 motherboards. If I wasn't going to do a SBC upgrade, I would at least talk to sportybob about replacing the SRAM with a CF drive that would act as a hard drive. From the look of it you might throw a few more sticks of ram in there while your'e at it.

[sportybob]

Hi Plane captain, On your C 6 control, to do networking, you would need to add a hard drive, ( or my CF drive) load MS DOS to the hard drive, make it boot to the hard drive add a nic card, get the networking software, install and set up networking software, and several other steps.
Update to a single board computer, it should have the NIC on board, Not all SBC boards will work, I have 5 or 6 SBC computers on my shelf that did not work for one reason or another, memory conflicts, video conflicts, no floppy connection, etc, etc, etc.

using the AEDMDISU2 adonics will also require having a hard drive / Cflash drive as above to be able to load the driver for it.

I noticed that in pic 1, that your mother board has a Dallas real time clock ( black rectangle unit below the 2 empty PCI slots, This is used for the CMOS battery, If the battery dies, that chip will need to be replaced, I only have about a 20% success at replacing those chips, lots of pins in a multi layered board. I do a SBC update at that point.

You can PM me for more info.
or call me 952-288-6340

Sportybob

[dragracer06]

Sportybob I did find an article about someone hacking up a Dallas chip and soldering a different external battery to it. Have you tried it or had luck doing this? I seen one of my machines "partner C" has the dreaded Dallas chip and is in need. Maybe worth a try for Plane captain or myself?

[plane captain]

Thanks for the info. Sportybob. What is the life span of the Dallas clock? Also what sould a SBC cost on my machine? Thanks, Chris.

[sportybob]

The Dallas chip is usually good for ~12 years.
You can certainly try the dig and scrape method, nothing to loose. But I don't do it in my shop.
I have a control in the shop right now that someone did the dig and scrape external battery install on . And here it is at my shop getting a SBC update.
The motherboard mfg saved about a quarter by not using a DIP to mount the Dallas chip, that would have been too easy.as would have adding an external battery jumper, like on the 386 motherboards :-(

PM me on the cost for the SBC update

sportybob