Toyoda with Fanuc 31i Model B Ethernet connection

Hi All,

I am trying to connect a Fanuc 31i Model B to a local area network (Ethernet) in a manufacturing plant. First, let me state that I'm not a machinist and I have only limited experience with these machines. My background is computer science and information technology (IT). Second, I consult for the company and do most of their IT work (they are not big enough for a full time IT person).

It's my understanding that the CNC machine, a Toyoda, was purchased used. I did not get the model of the machine (but can ask), but it looks very much like the Toyoda RB312. It has a Fanuc 31i Model B controller. The machine has not been used with Ethernet at its present location. USB sticks have been used to move NC programs to the machine.

The machine has Ethernet running to it. The cable was run into the machine's large electrical cabinet (by someone else) and plugged into an electronics box (looks like a medium pizza box on its side, with two PCMCIA-size card slots) inside which has two RJ-45 jacks labelled Ethernet. Is this the logic for the Fanuc 31i or something else? I can unplug the cable from inside cabinet, plug the cable into my laptop, and ping devices on the plant LAN, so the cable is good all the way into the machine.

I have been able to configure the Fanuc 31i with an IP address and it can successfully ping its own IP address, but that is as far as I can get. I cannot ping any plant devices. We have managed Ethernet switches in the plant, and I logged in and checked the MAC tables, looking for the Fanuc's MAC address, and did not find it. That means it is not doing any communication at all with the plant network.

Can anyone offer suggestions of things to check? I'm trying to put together a list of things for the next time I go in to do work.

Thanks!!!

Maybe this will help. It's from the fine folks at Doosan, but should work for your Toyoda.

I was able to get this working. I'm not sure if there was one particular thing that got it working. I checked a bunch of settings, most of which were correct. I was able to find and configure the appropriate interface and put it into DHCP mode. After shutting down the machine and bringing it back up, it sent out a DHCP request and got an IP address on the network. Then it was able to ping the server. I was then able to configure FTP and got it to connect to the file server. So it's all working now and the machinists are happy.