We finally have a somewhat decent post processor for our Fanuc 3M Accumill. But now that we can create much more complex (and sub sequentially larger) programs, our little old 3M is running out of memory. I can only store an estimated 16kB, not nearly enough for our complex programs.

So I want to drip feed to the control. I looked up others trying to do the same thing but is seems few have come to a conclusion. I see some buying expensive extra hardware, but I don't want to go down that road unless absolutely necessary. Our control has a tape reader along with a mysterious black box behind the panel (see images). I wonder if this could be some kind of adapter for drip feeding? We have a laptop wired in via RS232 directly to the back of the tape reader just to load programs. Was the tape reader meant to only load into memory? Or was it used to drip feed and execute directly?

IMAGES: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmXeGRka

Thanks,
Justin