[sulley]

Hi All,

I've had a Bungard CCD PCB router that uses proprietary software called Routepro that runs in DOS which is limiting it's usage. Newer versions of this software do not seem to work with this (older) model and I would like to use the machine for things other than PCB routing... so I would like to take steps to make it compatible with various other CNC softwares.

The system connects to the host PC over RS232. Last night I made a start on reverse engineering the protocol used. It appears quite simple, it sends a byte of data corresponding to the direction required. Each byte = 1 thou in desired direction. ie to achieve a feed rate of 500thou/sec you would send the designated byte 500 times in one seconds. Using a simple terminal application I tried this out on a Windows XP machine, and indeed it does work, but the timing is way off, I assume this is due to buffers, multitasking etc.

What are my options to make this system compatible with more convenient software? I can remove the entire RS232 front end and drive the driver chips directly from the parallel port from Mach3. Or I could implement my own GCode interpreter on a PIC or such like. Or there may already be an application out there compatible with this form of serial link?

Any ideas will be gratefully received.

Thanks,

Rob

[bob123]

Hi Rob,

I dont know if you are still on this forum. I too have a bungard CCD 2, it works with Route pro, however, I would like to be able to use the machine as a conventional CNC machine to prototype out of plastic e.t.c. I was wondering if you had got any further with converting the machine to run on G-Code or if you had found a solution to the problem you were refering to.

Thanks