DNC feasibility??

Hello out there.

If anyone can guide me in the right direction in regards to DNC, I would greatly appreciate the help.

I currently run a 3 axis mill with Mastercam ver9.1.(windows XP) In the near future we are looking at running 2 machines (1 mill and 1 lathe) initially, with the possibility of controlling several machines from the one programming P.C. later down the track.

Is it feasible to use DNC for two machines? What other options are there to using DNC? Do I need to purchase a third party programme for DNC and if so, which program works best with Mastercam? Any other issues I need to address?

thanks Craig

note:other message has wrong email address

what is your CNC type ? Fanuc or Not DNC have a few meaning. To Control machine,To Up/Down programs and To execute directly with uploading. and you can use 1 PC to connect with machines.

thanks for the reply

Both machines are fanuc controlled, the mill is a series OM and the lathe is series OT. The Mastercam program is currently communicating with the mill via RS232 cable connection.

I currently program the mill toolpaths on the PC, then download to mill and manually execute from the controller. Not execute directly. To execute directly for us is dangerous as we do mostly "one-off" jobs. As with the mill I'd like have the same setup for the lathe.

I believe mastercams comm feature will only feed one machine at a time, I could be wrong. It takes almost no computing power to dnc. In my opinion you would be better off hooking up an old pc for your dnc service. I've many years of mastercam behind me and I know that It will occasionally lock up your computer, rebooting is no big deal. It might be a big deal if you are feeding several machines at the same time. If you run small toolpaths and they dump into your machines memory amost instantly you could go ahead and use Mastercam you can set up comm ports 1-4 and hook up 4 machines . You would probably have to add some serial ports to your computer. If you run large 3d toolpaths that are bigger than the memory on your machine, get a seperate computer just to talk to your machines. It has been a few years but Sihler Engineering had a nice setup that could feed many machines and was less than 300$ for the first seat, real good support also.

How about one more RS232 connection. PC have 2 serial port, COM1 for Mill, COM2 for Lathe. (other case, you can buy 8port serial device.) Run Mastercam program twice for each machine.