Cimco MDC and Fanuc alarms

[Mick]

I've got a customer that is trialling Cimco MDC, using a basic setup. They're outputting data via the DPRNT command. Cimco can't really help, as they said the errors are Fanuc errors and are control related. I'm curious if anyone has encountered any of these errors before?

 

On one machine, they get a "0086 DR Signal Off" when trying to send the DPRNT. And on another machine, they get a "005 No data after address" as soon as it reads the POPEN command. I'm thinking that the second error is the result of a character address with no value?

 

I'm curious if anyone has ever encountered these errors before, and knows of a correction?

[So not a Guru]

0086

http://www.cncalarms.com/fanuc/fanuc-alarm-86-dr-signal

 

005

http://www.cncalarms.com/fanuc/fanuc-alarm-5-no-data-after-address

[Watcher]

Mick,

 

What worked for me in Fanucs was to have a cable supporting Hardware handshake and set in the serial port in DNC-Max 'Set DTR high' (Data Terminal Ready)

 

I´m not sure if CIMCO understood your issue because this is not a control error, is just a configuration issue. The control is yelling at you because FANUC demands the signal that monitors if the peripheral device is connected is set as high. That´s what DR is (Device ready) - When this signal is low, the CNC thinks the peripheral (PC/Moxa/COM Port/Printer,Etc) is not connected and thus generate an error. The alarm 5 is just a consequence of expecting data that never comes and timing out.

 

The cable pinout and some serial port settings in DNC-Max needs to be properly set. That´s the issue here.

 

Typically, considering hardware handshake, those are ("Serial port" node)

 

Flow control: Hardware and Software

Hardware flow type: RTS/CTS

Set DTR High

 

In order to allow the operator to start the transmission process pushing a button in the control, go to the "Transmit" node in the port settings and check:

 

"Wait for XOn on remote request"

"Wait for XOn on manual transfer"

 

And personally like to use:

 

"Abort if new transfer starts"

[Watcher]

You can also make it work with software handshake only (I personally don´t like it and strive to work with hardware handshake only) by jumping some pins:

 

http://www.i-logic.com/serial/fancomm.htm

 

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/cnc-machining/fanuc-p-s-086-alarm-244631/

 

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/mazak-mitsubishi-mazatrol/8808-code-86-dr-signal.html

[Watcher]

Now thinking about CIMCO-MDC, if you use software flow control, you can use the DTR and CTS signals (Set them in the "Messaging" node (CTS / DSR monitor) to monitor in the future the signals from the machine, rather than using DPRINT messages. This is more reliable. I´ve done in the past and works flawlessly and is much harder to be circumvented by operators.

 

If you use hardware handshake, these signals are used in the communication and thus cannot be used to trigger MDC messages...

 

But with all messaging interfaces DNC-Max offers now, I think this is not the best approach these days. They can do miracles with FOCAS now, with much less efforts.

[Guest]

FOCAS (as opposed to FOCUS ) kicks @$$. You can do almost everything with and because of it. Way better than some RS-232 hack (sorry CIMCO, Predator, Refresh Your Memory, etc...)

[Mick]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I appreciate it.

 

It looks like I will be going to in to see them early in the new year, to see if I can sort this out. Your feedback will be a great help.