Editor for program download

I have 3 Haas mills and a Haas lathe. 2 of the mills have USB on them, but we acquired a older mini mill in excellent shape and low hours that only has RS232. Oddly, the PC that I run Mastercam from only has USB. I have no problems transferring data to the newer mills and lathe via a USB stick, but I can't on the mini mill. I got a USB to RS232 adaptor from Moxa and we have been able to download directly from my Mastercam dealers laptop to the Haas, but for some reason that I have never been able to identify, I can not download from my desktop computer that I run my Mastercam from. Our IT guy who built the pc can't figure it out, my MC dealer can't figure it out, and I'm a toolmaker, not a computer expert. So, the easy way out is to simply get another basic laptop with USB, take my programs from a USB stick, download to the laptop, and then on the mini mill.

The problem is within the desktop that I run Mastercam from. We tried multiple laptops with Cimco Editor and all were able to communicate with the mill, except the desktop.

So using the scenario described above, I plan to just get another laptop, install a editor on it, and push programs to the laptop via network, or USB stick. What I need is a simple NC editor software that is cheap, or free is even better. I have spent more time trying to figure out what the hell is wrong, but have given up. I don't use the Mini Mill much, but it's very handy for small parts so I'd like to be able to transfer programs to it. Any suggestions or anyone else ever seen this? My Mastercam dealer has very good people and they have tried multiple to figure this out, but honestly it's not their problem, it's the desktop that I'm using. The most painless way to get to where I want to go would simply be getting a spare laptop and just leave it with the Mini Mill for program transfer.

Have you tried using a different USB stick? I remember having this issue on some of the older hass's at school and using a different USB cleared it up(usually one with under 4gb of memory).

I had a freebie that worked well,but can't remember the name of it. Possible this was it- EdytorNC download | SourceForge.net

Install one of these in your desktop computer to get a RS232 port to talk to the mini mill.

Amazon.com: StarTech.com 2 Port PCI RS232 Serial Adapter Card with 1655 UART PCI2S55: Electronics

I have no problem with the usb sticks, it's the actual usb port on my desktop when mated to the Moxa USB to serial adaptor. The adaptor has worked fine on every laptop we have tried that had a nc editor, but none of those laptops (3) were mine.

We purchased a USB to RS32 portable box that you bring to any cnc connect it to the machine and load your USB stick to it and transfer your file. Works like a charm.You can even drip feed with it. If interested we purchased it at Shopfloor Automations website, cost was $700 but it works so well we got a second one. Just a suggestion.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes I looked into that as well. While talking to my MasterCam dealer he recommended the usb to serial interface from Moxa that was less than $200 with a 50 foot cable. As I mentioned in my first post, the Moxa adaptor has worked very well on every laptop I tried it on that had Mastercam loaded. Everyone worked flawlessly. Something is corrupted within the desktop PC I am using. The programs transfer through to the machine, but there are loads of characters added or completely out of sequence which of course the Haas doesn't like. It's very strange?

zr1nsx said:

Yes I looked into that as well. While talking to my MasterCam dealer he recommended the usb to serial interface from Moxa that was less than $200 with a 50 foot cable. As I mentioned in my first post, the Moxa adaptor has worked very well on every laptop I tried it on that had Mastercam loaded. Everyone worked flawlessly. Something is corrupted within the desktop PC I am using. The programs transfer through to the machine, but there are loads of characters added or completely out of sequence which of course the Haas doesn't like. It's very strange?

Click to expand...

Could be a driver issue but more likely a usb port or motherboard incompatibility issue. I have had very spotty reliability using USB to rs232 converters. Some work very well with certain combinations of PC hardware and others just won't work.

The problem revolves around internal cpu interrupt structures in the PC and many times the usb-rs232 converter suffers from internal buffer overflows when used with a particular hardware combination. All of these corrupt the transferred data stream.

Work around is the addition of a true rs232 serial interface card as has been suggested. Another is to try a different USB to rs232 converter which might or might not work.

You might also wont to look at the COM port properties when the USB-rs232 converter is plugged in, you might just have a bad configuration issue as in handshake being turned off.

Thanks for the reply Ziggy. We did investigate the Com Port Properties and did make multiple revisions trying to make it play nicely, all to no avail. I currently am using a spare laptop to transfer programs via the same hardware that was hooked up to the desktop and it works very well with a trial copy of Cimco Edit. The addition of the serial interface card is probably the best solution, and the most economical at this point. Cost isn't the problem.

Did that converter come with a driver?
What OS is on the laptop? The desktop? Are the OS's the same?
You are not the first guy with a converter that behaves like this.

A cheap fixses
1. Get a surplus PC with a RS232 port. $45.
2. My Lenovo laptop base has a RS232 port in the back, but the laptop itself does not.