Miyano 6BC lathe: is this a BTR?

Hello,
I am working on finally getting this CNC lathe setup. It powers on and appears to be operating correctly. I started looking for a BTR for this (Yasnac compatible) and I figured I should try to understand what I have here first.
This appears to be an 'after market' addition to the machine.

The back side says 'Serial' and 'Parallel' there is no name on the box but the board says "CLI" There is a power button on the front.
When I open it up, there is another parallel connector inside and the red and black wire that had gone to the 'serial' port are now connected to the parallel port.

The 'output' parallel connector does go into the machine and is spliced into a wire harness behind the user control panel. Although I cant yet tell what lines it is interfacing with.

I had read in a post that the parallel interface would need a short connection to the computer...this box would fit that description.

Any thoughts/suggestions for what this is?
Thank you
Dave

It very much looks like a BTR. Not one I've seen before. The ones I've dealt with had jumpers or dipswitches for configuring the serial communication settings. Did not see any in your pictures. You might try it and see what happens. Without documentation it could be a real PITA to figure it out.

I looked up the main chip, (RCA CDP1854) it is a Programmable receiver/transmitter for formatting and control between serial and parallel data. Which makes sense given there is a serial and parallel connector on the back. But if it is custom programmed then it may require a custom software to interface to it
I will try to connect to the serial port and see if anything can be sent to controller...assuming I can figure out how to tell the machine to read correctly from the "BTR"

Cooperstock said:

I looked up the main chip, (RCA CDP1854) it is a Programmable receiver/transmitter for formatting and control between serial and parallel data. Which makes sense given there is a serial and parallel connector on the back. But if it is custom programmed then it may require a custom software to interface to it
I will try to connect to the serial port and see if anything can be sent to controller...assuming I can figure out how to tell the machine to read correctly from the "BTR"

Click to expand...

I'd doubt that it needs custom software to work. To start with I think you are going to have to use a really slow baud rate. Start at 150 then if you start seeing anything work go up to 300 and try that. The next step would be 600 then 1200. Absolutely no reason to go higher than 1200, the machine won't read anything that fast and could introduce errors into the operation. Fancier BTRs had memory so you could send to them at higher speeds and then the BTR would feed the control however fast it could read. Format is probably going to be like 8 databits 1 stopbit and odd or no parity. Working through all the combinations could be a PITA.

Thank you, I'll give it a go.
SHouldn't be too bad to try. I can try combinations at low baud rate until it sends (if it sends) then I can inch up on the baud rate from the sending program to see when it starts to throw errors.
Thank you!

I am curious why the 'serial' port had the wire clipped and connected to a 25 pin parallel connection (the short wire/connection shown in the first picture)
i have an RS-232 connection from my laptop i am going to try...but no parallel connection.
I am planning on re-connection to the serial port to try it. I wish they wouldn't have clipped the wires so short

New information,
I pealed off a sticker on the front of the box and the box is called a "Numeridex PC-502"
I tried doing an inter net search and didn't find much.
My initial guess is this is an interface box to the tape reader/writer device. The internet indicated Numeridex has tape related devices.
So this may not be a BTR
Also may explain why there is no dip switches.

I haven't given up yet through.
I put a DB9 connector on it, with ferrites.
I looked up what pin connections were used on the DB25 (common and TX) and connected to the same serial pins.

I am attempting to 'load code' onto the machine using the instructions in the manual although I can not tell if the machine is actually 'listening' for code.
Maybe this is a question for a different thread but:
(this is a Yasnac controller)
'Com' button pressed
Dial to 'Tape'
'reset' to activate 'Label skip' light
number is set to '00'
then press 'read/punch start'

I was looking for some indicator the machine was attempting to listen to the tape reader, but nothing obvious happened.
I know this is an older machine so any suggestions would be good.

Also: haven't figured out how to get x and z to set zero. instructions indicated with 'zero return' switch on, jog X and Z to their zeros...but all I managed to do was to hit the hard limits and shut down the machine
But I learned how to 'Machine reset' off the limits, so that was useful.

I picked up a Greco MTI unit but despite people saying they are good I have found no information on how to connect it. If someone reads this that has used a Greco Systems MTI or knows anything about them, please let me know.
Thanks
David

The first pic....just wow!!!....talking about blast from the past

Kaszub said:

The first pic....just wow!!!....talking about blast from the past

Click to expand...

Ha! So any chance you could recall the key strokes to tell the machine to read in code?
Im not sure how to verify the machine is actually listening for code coming in

Do you have the 2000g operator manual?

Instructions on how to load program memory from the tape reader starts on page 105 of the manual here..

Details - Yaskawa

Cooperstock said:

Ha! So any chance you could recall the key strokes to tell the machine to read in code?
Im not sure how to verify the machine is actually listening for code coming in

Click to expand...

Never run one, seen few of them as a kid some 30 something years ago.

Vancbiker said:

Do you have the 2000g operator manual?

Instructions on how to load program memory from the tape reader starts on page 105 of the manual here..

Details - Yaskawa

Click to expand...

I do have that manual, I forget that the Machine and the controls are two separate entities working together. Thank you! I will go read through that. I had been reading through all of the Miyano manual

Kaszub said:

Never run one, seen few of them as a kid some 30 something years ago.

Click to expand...

ha, yeah it aint a young machine. Got it for a pretty good price, we do small R&D machining for local companies so I don't need a hug amount of capability. It appears to run, just need to get some code into it. And become more familiar with it. I keep expecting it to have a red light come on and say "Good morning Dave"