What's new
What's new

DNC on Minimill using HSMXpress

Tim in D

Hot Rolled
Joined
Mar 11, 2003
Location
Dallas, Tx
I have been using the RS232 port on Win 7 machine to down load posts from hxmxpress to my 2006 minimill without a problem. I now want to DNC the programs as they are getting bigger and bigger. The Haas is set up for DNC per manual. When I go to setup the port settings in hsmxpress under " flow control" I can choose either;
Hardware and software or Software or None. If I select None, I can further choose DTR (on or off) and/or RTS (on or off). Nothing in there like Xon/Xoff or Xmodem.

The port setting choices on my Win 7 machine are Xon/Xoff, Hardware, None.

The choices on the mill are Xmodem, Xon/xoff, DC codes, RTS/CTS.

How do I set this up?
Yesterday I had everything talking to each other under DNC but an error message came up about Line numbers. So I edited all the line numbers out. The post ran for so many lines (100's or more) and an error message halted the run with "bad number" or something . So now I have miles of code with a "bad number" in it and no way of knowing what line it's on! :willy_nilly:

As I write this I now realize I didn't write down my settings for transfereing smaller files and have changed things around...............:mad5:

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Tim in D
 
This isn't a direct help, but make sure you are using smoothing on any adaptive clearing or 3D toolpaths, it will reduce the size of the code massively. What sort of file sizes are you seeing?
 
I believe '06 machines came standard with USB ports. If that is correct, why not just use that? I do this with my '07 VF-2ss and it works great for programs topping 8MB.
 
Thanks for responding to my post.

By trial and error I have everything working. In HSMxpress I used Even parity with Stop bit of 1 and 8 Data bits at a Baud rate of 9600. (The wire is easily 30 ft.). Flow control is set to Software and I enabled DTR and RTS and Parity Checking is on. On the Haas, I've set Parity to Even, Stop bit 1, Synchronization Xon/Xoff and 8 Data bits.

One question I have about DNC is what you do if a tool breaks....................How do you restart without having to rerun the entire program?

The machine is a 2005 BTW so no USB port, only RS232 and Floppy drive.

Thanks for the tip about smoothing............just yesterday I watched a video about that.

Tim in D
 
In my experience you can't restart a DNC program in the middle. When I have to DNC I break the program up into ops so that I don't have to re-run everything if I have a problem.
 
"I don't know where the hell I got '06. "

Probably cause I said it was 2006 in my first post! 2005 bought in 2006........

XD341,

Re size of program, I've got 358K over 4 operations. 2 are adaptive. Are you posting the ops separately as if they are different jobs? I'm not sure I understand how you are "breaking the program up into ops".

Thanks for your help, guys.

Tim in D
 
One question I have about DNC is what you do if a tool breaks....................How do you restart without having to rerun the entire program?

Tim in D

Hi Tim,
If using a PC to DNC to the machine, its normally a function of the Comms Software as to whether starting other than at the Start of the program is possible. The attached picture is a Screen Shot of my software, where I provide the option of starting the program from wherever the cursor is placed, or running part of the program constrained by Markers. You do, however, have to arrange your program so that each Tool Operation is a Stand Alone within the program. This is good practice even when the program is loaded into memory.

DNC3.jpg

Regards,

Bill
 
"I don't know where the hell I got '06. "

Probably cause I said it was 2006 in my first post! 2005 bought in 2006........

XD341,

Re size of program, I've got 358K over 4 operations. 2 are adaptive. Are you posting the ops separately as if they are different jobs? I'm not sure I understand how you are "breaking the program up into ops".

Thanks for your help, guys.

Tim in D

Yes, an adaptive with a 5/8 EM would be a separate program from the subsequent rest machining with a 3/8 or whatever. I normally only have to do this on surfacing jobs for mold/tool work. These are big projects where quality trumps speed so it's not a big deal.
 
Hi Tim,
If using a PC to DNC to the machine, its normally a function of the Comms Software as to whether starting other than at the Start of the program is possible. The attached picture is a Screen Shot of my software, where I provide the option of starting the program from wherever the cursor is placed, or running part of the program constrained by Markers. You do, however, have to arrange your program so that each Tool Operation is a Stand Alone within the program. This is good practice even when the program is loaded into memory.

View attachment 97566

Regards,

Bill

I'll explore my coms editor that is included with HSMxpress. It looks pretty capable.

Tim in D
 








 
Back
Top