How to drip feed a Fadal (4020 or 3015) ?

Hi Group,

- A machine shop owner buddy of mine just had one of his key employees pass away - that operates his 4020 and his 3015 Fadals.
- Apparently, the operator was drip feeding the Fadal's from a laptop (he's still investigating what software he was using on the laptop/PC).

- Can anyone direct me to a Fadal user manual on how to set the Fadal up into a Drip Feed Mode? (specifically how do you set the baud rate, how do you get it into a mode where it will receive blocks from the PC ? What do you type in?).

- The cables and programs are still there, just need to know the Fadal commands.

- As soon as I know what drip feed software he was using - I'll post that info, too.

Thanks For the Help!

Joe

Sorry to hear for your loss.

The fadal is very easy actually.

I don't know what vintage your machine is but the DNC and load program is in the "memory" command. You can "memory" "input" or DNC and it's is fairly straight forward.

Here's a link for online manuals. If you PM me I can go step by step and keep notes. It is such automatic habit for me I forget what I push to load a program or drip feed.

Flint Machine Tools, Inc.

You can use a FADAL program called ASSIST, select PROGRAMs, and from the list, 10. VMC DNC. The program should not end with a M2. The last line of the program should be M0.

NCFadal is excellent for the older machines. My runs always end in M2, I only use M0 for a stop-break in the middle of a cycle when required

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DareBee

NCFadal is excellent for the older machines. My runs always end in M2, I only use M0 for a stop-break in the middle of a cycle when required

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I am unable to get that newer version of NCfadal to work on my xp machine. The older version is ran in Windows 98.
The M2 returns the control to what is in memory.

easiest way is to get the usb adapter from calmotion then just load the program on a usb stick and
use the dnc command on that, no more laptop evolved

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LSM

easiest way is to get the usb adapter from calmotion then just load the program on a usb stick and
use the dnc command on that, no more laptop evolved

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Installing the Calmotion USB adaptor was the best thing I ever did on the 4020.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Paul_S

I am unable to get that newer version of NCfadal to work on my xp machine. The older version is ran in Windows 98.
The M2 returns the control to what is in memory.

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I run my fadal using NCFadal that is on a small Dell computer that's bolted to the control cabinet. no monitor or keyboard. I then remote desktop into that pc, and use NCFadal over remote desktop. Once you start the program on NCFadal, the control will say 'waiting...' then you press cycle start and you're off!

my shop computers run windows 7 and windows 8 so I doubt it's an xp compatibility thing. maybe a port settings thing?

granted, I have an older machine. 1992 4020 w/cnc88 (1400-4 processor)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fizzissist

Installing the Calmotion USB adaptor was the best thing I ever did on the 4020.

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What do you like about it?

I'm actually interested in getting one but there were a couple of things that I was thinking I wouldn't like too much like having to sneakernet the USB key back and forth to the office and being limited to 8 digit file names.

I thought about going the calmotion route, but ended up going with this:
Moxa Wireless Device Servers NPort W2150A/2250A - 1 and 2-port RS-232/422/485 Wireless Device Servers

Nice thing is everything gets sent directly from the machine that does the cad/cam. No noise - no issues. You can run it as fast as your Fadal will allow. I have a short 1' cable from the wireless rs232 box to the fadal.

Works incredibly well.