I've had an 80's vintage VMC 40 for a couple of years now, just getting around to firing her up. Everything seems to be working well, except I've discovered one of the previous owners relocated or was in the process of relocating the RS232 from the rear of the control cabinet to the top. I don't know if the succeeded or never finished but it is now missing the 26 pin (2 x 13) looks like IDC ribbon connector from edge of the 1030-0 card that must have terminated to a male DB25 pin connector. The female DB25 to male modem connector DB25 and the now on top external to cabinet DB25 are still present.
I have been hunting high and low for just this cable, which apparently rarely goes wrong or missing. If I can't find I will try to make up a cable but would need to know the 1030-0 card's pinout. Any comments or suggestions on where one might find a premade cable or the info to make up a new one?
I won't know if the 1030 card is OK until I can run the diagnostics with an interface cable and the loopback tester.
Hmm, I've just been messing with the DNC on my new VMC15XT. I found the part once online. It was $79 or something which is not a good deal at all. It's WIR-0174 at least on my machine. The cable I have only has about 6 wires going between the 16pin IDC connector and the DB25. Sadly I don't know the pinout right now. Let's see if someone has the pinout handy. If not I'll go figure it out for you. Can you double check to make sure you have a 16pin connector on the board? If not my pinout will be useless (and it won't be WIR-0174). Good luck
I have not had any luck yet. I had found wiring harness WIR-0615 on FadalVMCParts.com (aka ITScnc.com) which they describe as the PCB 1030 card connection for RS232 / RS422, so I inquired to see if it was compatible with the 1030-0 version of card that I have. I can't tell from their pic the pin count or relative size of the IDC card connector. That has been 1 or 2 weeks ago I emailed them, still no response.
Sounds like the VMC15XT is different, is your card a 1030-0 version? It may be your's is a newer later model series machine and controls. I'll have to double check the pin count, but thought I had it right with 2 rows of 13 for a 26 pin female IDC slot on the edge of the card (light blue connector). I'll post again once confirmed.
I know 3 wires minimum should work, but I think I have 26 pins to chose from. The DB25 end is easy, as there are plenty of online references to which pins are used by the Fadal at that end of the line.
Thanks, and good luck with your machine. RS232 is just like a relationship, it is critical and difficult to establish good communication. A lot of things are much easier once you get that out of the way.
I have the 1030-1C board, and it's definitely only 16 pins and it looks like the connector on the cable in your link has 16 pins, but it's hard to really tell, and of course may not even be a picture of the exact item. If you find the pinout for your board please post it back here so people who find this post in google have a fighting chance. Thanks.
It just occurred to me, I would bet you just need a 26 IDC cable and connector that goes to a 26 pin IDC DB25. If not the guys who designed it are dorks. All those parts are available at frys. Be aware pin 2 and 3 might be reversed so you might need a null modem cable. Give it a try.
I had thought about it, but didn't want to chance ruining the board. Turns out they aren't dorks. They went the simple and straight forward, basically a standard LPT or parallel port 26 IDC header to DB25F. I had to make up a male loopback tester or 'mirror' plug in Fadal speak. The diagnostics said the board and LPT cable should be OK. Then I wasted quite a bit of time messing with PC, com ports, software setting, and cables. I had a PC DB9 to VMC DB25M null modem, pin-outs verified OK per Fadal manual chapter 14. Tried and tried, no luck. Made up a simplified null modem with only RD/TD crossed and GND, all others loopback to PC and VMC. Still no luck. Then I had noticed some of the DNC vendors recommended a straight through on the TD/RD pins 2/3. Patched another 9pin null modem in front of the simplified 9/25 and viola. It finally worked.
Of course solve one problem and onto the next. The sample code I was trying to load gave a "Number is out of range" error. Guessing a calculation exceeding the range or resolution of the CNC 88. still very happy to be able to load programs. Wooha!
I just got serial working on my machine a couple weeks ago and had to go thru the same thing. I bought every adapter Frys had. There doesn't appear to be any good linux DNC software so I'm writing some simple tools myself. If you're uploading the file in it's entirety then you should be able to use SUM to find out what the control doesn't like about your program or thinks is "out of range" I think.
Fadal 1030-0 interface cable to DB25 RS232
Reply with Quote
