Thread: Connecting a Robodrill to a PC

Hi guys,

I'm trying to understand how these mills interface with the PCs in our shop.

The machine we're working on right now is a Fanuc Robodrill Mate with a Fanuc control, I'm not exactly sure of the model.

In the manual it doesn't really explain how to connect the computer to the machine with a cable, it just says you can find a softkey labeled DNC-CD or something. However we can't find that in the interface.

We have a serial to RS232 cable connecting the two. I am not sure what is going wrong. If both ends have the right parameters, they should be able to detect each other passively, right? Or does the computer have to initiate the connection with special headers?

Could our pinouts be wrong?

Thanks,
Engie

Are you trying to use DNC software to send/receive programs? Finding out your control model would help. In my shop I have three Robo's with Fanuc 16-i/M controls, and I use Mastercam to send out programs via RS232 and my CAMs DNC software. If this is the case you need to look in your system parameters to find out the machines baud rate, and the numbers for data and stop bits. It should be something like...
Baud Rate 4800
Bits 7
Parity Even
Stop Bits 2
Handshaking Xon/Xoff
These need to be entered into your DNC softwares send/receive parameters

The only way to transer is thru a FTP windows program. Its a real PITA...

Contact your support guy and see if they can walk you thru it. It took them 2 days to get mine going AND they were here.

Anyone has any other way of doing it please let me know..

Thanks for the replies.

The control is a Fanuc 0i-mc.

The computer is a Win2000 pc with some tiny little DNC program, I was going to try and use another computer that has Mastercam X on it.

We have a Oi-TD and we use WinFTP software to transfer files back and forth works pretty good. We had to find the embedded ethernet functions of the control and give it the computer location, password, and file directory and it works pretty well. Mind you we did have atleast one call into Fanuc to help us get that done, don't remember what about exactly something about the control keypad didn't have a character on it, that was in the computer directory or something like that.

Is the RS232-Serial cable standard throughout the industry? Or are there different pinouts for each specific control/brand?

Most of our machines have Fanuc controls.

Originally Posted by Engie

Is the RS232-Serial cable standard throughout the industry? Or are there different pinouts for each specific control/brand?

Most of our machines have Fanuc controls.

Different pin-outs per control manufacturer.