[DareBee]

Hey fellows

Is there a way to check program continuity in my 88HS-4?
Every once in awhile I lose a few lines when transferring a program from the computer to the control. My programs have line numbers so IF I can catch it, it is obvious. Problem is when I have 20000 lines it would take a day to scroll through each page looking for missing lines.
I also hate to have to stand at the machine and stare at it will i do an hour long "dry run" to hopefully see errors.
Today the transfer skipped from line 2056 to 2068.
It also seems to typically happen on long blocks.


N2055 X-0.9215 Y0.0654 F17.
N2056 G3 X-0.9871 Y0.0115 I-0.0059 J-0.0597 F17.
N2057 X-0.7529 Y-0.0115 I0.1171 J-0.0115 F17.
N2058 X-0.9871 Y0.0115 I-0.1171 J0.0115 F17.
N2059 G2 X-0.9915 Y0.012 I-0.0022 J0.0003 F17.
N2060 G3 X-0.9958 Y0.0124 I-0.0022 J0.0002 F17.
N2061 X-0.7442 Y-0.0124 I0.1258 J-0.0124 F17.
N2062 X-0.9958 Y0.0124 I-0.1258 J0.0124 F17.
N2063 G2 X-1.0002 Y0.0128 I-0.0022 J0.0002 F17.
N2064 G3 X-1.0046 Y0.0133 I-0.0022 J0.0002 F17.
N2065 X-0.7355 Y-0.0132 I0.1346 J-0.0133 F17.
N2066 X-1.0046 Y0.0133 I-0.1345 J0.0132 F17.
N2067 G2 X-1.0089 Y0.0137 I-0.0021 J0.0002 F17.
N2068 G3 X-1.0133 Y0.0141 I-0.0022 J0.0002 F17.
N2069 X-0.7267 Y-0.0141 I0.1433 J-0.0141 F17.

TIA

[Neal]

Try the SUM command: SU,,,,1 and press enter. The program will rapidly scan the program and display all the move translated to incremental on the screen. If it finds an impossible move it will stop and error out.

Neal

[cncboy1]

Hallo

Whats the lenght of the cable? NO? ==>> Use WLAN
Is the screen grounding? (both side?)
Baudrate to high.?
Databit's and or Stopbit's Oke?
Working with Xon/Xoff? or DTR RTS/CTS?
Machine and PC on the potential (ground) NO? ==>> Use WLAN

[HuFlungDung]

Wow, that sucks.

What kind of communications software are you using?

Have you tried using a different comm port on the PC? Could be something wrong with that. Does everything appear to be ok in device manager? You might even need to try to install a new serial card in your PC to make meaningful comparison tests.

[Delw]

darebee
Ive had that problem sending long programs to the fadal and its sucks.
lower the baud rate to the next settng and try it. you need to change both in your software and on the fadal. if that doesnt fix it, make sure your wires dont run next to or above florescent lights thats a killer sometimes. a Quality cat 5 cable is a must if you have florescent lights with in 10 feet of your cable especially on long programs.

I send programs that are 2-7 megs all the time and those were the only 2 things that gave me problems, the lights and the baud rate and the florescent lights are usually a problem duirng the colder months and I have no clue why.

[neilw20]

One, slightly expensive solution is an optical serial link.
No idea where to get one, but the one I saw had DB25 each end, and heaps of fiber optic between them.
I am sure a web search will find plenty of good products like this, and it won't care what the temperature is or which flouro lights are interfering.

Get rid of the noisy cable problem, (and the earth connections which pickup noise)

Or use a really short cable and a laptop running on it's own battery for the transfer.
Can you send the file, and then read it back to another temporary file?
Compare with the original (DOS FC - file compare will work.)
If what you got back compares, then it is almost certain all the lines will be there.

[fizzissist]

DareBee,

I'm leaning towards the lower the baud rate one notch, but I'd also check the grounding of the cable. Use a meter and check that the ground is only on the correct end of the cable connection, or you could get spurious signal noise.

If you can correlate a code problem to the lights, I'd be real suspicious of a grounding problem.

(I've been blaming myself for code problems...but that light thing might come in handy!!)

[David Ferguson]

Missing data without parity errors is usually the inability of the host system to handle the software flow control correctly. I would mess with the advanced setting for the serial port hardware (or USB adapter). This could also be caused by the host communication software not supporting software flow control. Lowering the baud rate so that software flow control is not activated is one possible workaround -- trying other communication programs is another.

[DareBee]

Try the SUM command: SU,,,,1 and press enter. The program will rapidly scan the program and display all the move translated to incremental on the screen. If it finds an impossible move it will stop and error out.

Neal

That is the issue Neal. The moves I have been missing aren't impossible and program checks fine. Luckily I didn't crash the machine.
Unluckily , it cost my $1000 making a new part.

[DareBee]

Advice is appreciated.
I have tried or considered everything mentioned already.
- My issue is very rare (for me) but has happened twice now on this same program couple months apart.
- I am running 19.2K baud - some of my programs take over an hour to transfer if I go to 9600 and I have found no difference in com "quality" between the 2.
- I am actually (cheap bastard) running a USB converter on a 15 foot cable that was wired to Neil's supplied drawings maybe 7-8 years ago. USB shows up as port 4 as long as I use the same USB port. I should probably just get PCMCIA card.
- I am using hyperterminal for transfer and I us NCFadal for DNC. For some reason I can NOT get NC Fadal to do a transfer even though it works perfectly for DNC (anyone can help with this would be superb). I am able to transfer files both ways with Hyperterminal.
I have also used MultiDNC with no issues.

Enough for now - back to work

[HuFlungDung]

I have heard that hyperterminal is not as smart as some real dnc software. I don't pretend to know the difference, but I have reason to believe what I was told.

Try getting NCLink from OneCNC and using that.

I'm also dubious of using a USB com port setup. At best that is a software emulation of real serial port hardware, and who knows what bugs could creep in there, or how Windows itself might occasionally screw around with buffer loading, etc.

[DareBee]

I agree completely Hu.

I have gone a LOT of years without trouble.
I am ordering an Expresscard to serial adapter to hopefully fix the issue.
My current issue with most NC software is that they don't support the com 4 port that gets assigned to my USB-serial adapter.
Ideally I would like my NCFadal to work, either i am doing something wrong or it doesn't like my adapter. Strange because it does DNC properly.

[DareBee]

I purchased and installed a StarTech(tm) Expressport - serial card.

NCFadal now does a comp to controller file transfer (yeah)

As far as dropping lines goes ????

At this point I can only assume that my new connection is the improvement that I required. Ask me again in a couple of years.

[HuFlungDung]

That is a good thing.
I can relate a story here about the computer I use for communicating with my machines. Whenever I go to use the COM1, it does not work. I actually have to go into device manager, uninstall the com port, then instantly turn around and have it scan for hardware changes. It promptly reinstalls the COM1 and now it works.

For most of my transfers, I've gone with a wireless ethernet device, an Nport from Moxa. That works like a virtual com port in Windows. So it communicates via wireless router, with a device near the mill that emulates an RS232 port to the machine. That works well enough, too. This eliminates a super long cable from my office to the mill.

I don't know if ethernet has its own error checking utility, but I've had 100% transfer reliability with this Nport. It beats having to yank even a USB stick out of the PC and the machine. Sometimes, I have to resend a file about 4 times in 10 minutes because of goofups I made in setting up my machining program. Mind you, ordinary RS232 is exactly the same handiness.