I have a friend with the title machine I believe Boss 5. He would like to write programs offline then download to the machine. I "believe" that the unit has a "DNC Loader".
Any comments as to any software to allow him to load?
I am initially intending trying to chat using Procomm or Telix (I am old!) if I can strike up a conversation then will attempt to download a text file.
Obviously something more user friendly would be better once I can guarantee communications.
Any additional comments on my approach would be appreciated.
You could use something along the lines of TIP DNC by DLOG, but it would cost you. It's also obsolete, I believe, so they might not want to license it. They may well have a more recent offering though. Their main market is the supply of the industrial PCs that bolt to the machine to go between the machine's controller and the rest of the world, so the software is an ancillary to that.
Hyperterminal may well do all that is needed for the file transfer in either direction. If needed, I'll ask the lads at work what they resort to for maintaining production when us IT types have screwed things up again.
There is such a thing as "drip feed", which allows the CNC control to use programs that are larger than the memory capacity of the control. Parts of the program are dripped bit by bit as needed from a host computer via an RS232 link. This was of course more necessary years ago when memory was expensive and programs huge.
The DNC Loader you speak of may be an option for that purpose.
Your user may 1. Have plenty of memory, and/or 2. have small enough programs so they fit into the available memory. If so, the DNC loader should not be needed just to get his programs into memory. Sometimes there is a floppy disk or even a USB thumb drive option, and you can just use sneaker net to transfer your programs. As a minimum one hopes there will be an RS232 serial port.
First thing I would do is find out the RS232 requirements of the control, such as sex of connector, duplex, parity, stop bits, etc etc. All standard RS232 stuff you can then handle setting up a conversation with Hyper Terminal. One imagines that the control itself has some mode it will need to be placed in to listen to the port. For that you'll want the manual for the control. I do not know the Boss 5.
I can't say with certainty, but I'm 99% sure the Boss5 won't handle drip feeding. It was made long before the need for drip feeding huge programs had come about. It's replacement, the heidenhein TNC145 definately could not drip feed. That feature came in on the TNC151A, as fitted to later Bridgeports. So you should be able to use hyperterminal to send the info, you just need to know how to set up all the protocols and plug a serial cable in. I don't think TNCRemo would help, as it's specifically configured for the heidenhein TNC controls. I never did like it, but it is free.
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