Random alarms in previously proven code?

[STEVEN7685]

Hello everyone.

I am pretty green to cnc machining in general, so feel free to bash, laugh, feel sorry or insult me. I'm fairly flexible .

Almost 2 years ago our shop purchased a HAAS VF-0 (mid 1990's model). We bought a subscription to fusion 360, and a drip feed program called dnc4u (drip feed through rs232). Hope that catches you up a bit.

We are having an issue with the haas mill and we're wondering if anyone could maybe shed some light on what is going on?

What is happening.
I am running a program previously known to work without issue that has been proven in multiple production runs.

The program is enormous and I'm drip feeding the program. I am periodically getting "unknown code" error, so I will restart the program and just let it run again. It will continue to machine past the first error point, get some distance beyond where it previously faulted out and then fault again "unknown code". I've had the same exact process happen about 7 times now, each restart getting a bit further than it did before, but eventually getting an error.

Could there be some settings preventing the information from getting to the mill through the rs232 plug or an issue communicating in the dnc4u program that is sending the code?

I've changed the baudrate a couple of times and still got errors. Did the typical restart machine, and restart computer. Made sure the computer isn't going to sleep during the milling process. I'm just fumbling around trying to find the issue here.

I'm confident many of you have more experience than I do, and hopefully can point me in the right direction?

Any information would be helpful. Thanks!

 

[gregormarwick]

Definitely sounds like some characters are getting dropped during the drip feed.

Since you have had the drip feed working before, and presumably haven't changed anything, one thing to check is that your serial cable is not crossing any power cables that were not there before, especially make sure its far far away from any cheap ac adapters for your computer equipment / phone chargers etc.

Any other new sources of electrical noise...

Also your serial cable should be as short as you can possibly make it, the longer it is the more prone it is to interference and signal degradation.

 

[pcasanova]

are you using a native serial port or usb to serial converter? I had a converter that worked for about 6 months then when I tried punching a program in I would get errors. Looked at the code and had random oddball characters randomly in the program.

 

[13engines]

...We are having an issue with the haas mill and we're wondering if anyone could maybe shed some light on what is going on?

What is happening.
I am running a program previously known to work without issue that has been proven in multiple production runs....

Just to be perfectly clear. You ran this program successfully on this Haas machine many times before without issues, or was it proven and run successfully on another machine and now doesn't work right on this Haas. ?

 

[STEVEN7685]

Just to be perfectly clear. You ran this program successfully on this Haas machine many times before without issues, or was it proven and run successfully on another machine and now doesn't work right on this Haas. ?

yes, this exact code has been run multiple times on this exact machine. This is the only cnc milling machine we have.

 

[STEVEN7685]

are you using a native serial port or usb to serial converter? I had a converter that worked for about 6 months then when I tried punching a program in I would get errors. Looked at the code and had random oddball characters randomly in the program.

usb to serial converter going to our laptop. perhaps ill buy a new cord, they're cheap. thanks for the tip

 

[STEVEN7685]

Definitely sounds like some characters are getting dropped during the drip feed.

Since you have had the drip feed working before, and presumably haven't changed anything, one thing to check is that your serial cable is not crossing any power cables that were not there before, especially make sure its far far away from any cheap ac adapters for your computer equipment / phone chargers etc.

Any other new sources of electrical noise...

Also your serial cable should be as short as you can possibly make it, the longer it is the more prone it is to interference and signal degradation.

This is all great information to consider. Thank you for the insight. I will do my best to address all of these topics.

 

[DouglasJRizzo]

Many of the code errors are due to external software throwing out a carriage return or other character where it's not supposed to be. I'm also not too confident in Fusion just yet.

 

[STEVEN7685]

Many of the code errors are due to external software throwing out a carriage return or other character where it's not supposed to be. I'm also not too confident in Fusion just yet.

As far as this particular situation, I tend to think it has nothing to do with fusion 360 as I was just pulling old (proven) code from a file and sending it back through the laptop, into the usb to rs232 adapter into the mill.

I suppose the dnc4u program we use to send the data and drip feed with could be doing something odd, but it was not the last few times we ran this program. I am leaning more towards the cable situation we have going on, as some of the other helpful thread contributors have mentioned.

I thank you for your input.

 

[STEVEN7685]

Out of curiosity has anyone ever used one of those rs232 dnc drip feed units that takes thumb drives?

If the cables are the source of the problem I can shortstop them all with one of these.

But if they are totally bogus to begin with I'd like to know before I spend shop money on it.

here's a link to a cheap one on amazon in case you're not familiar with what I'm talking about.

Amazon.com: DNC ECO. DRIP FEED CNC UNIT: Industrial & Scientific

 

[Mud]

I have 3 of these - Highland DNC, LLC. Work great.
When you call you talk to the owner Jerry, I've been buying my com gear from him for 20+ years, recommend him highly.

 

[STEVEN7685]

I have 3 of these - Highland DNC, LLC. Work great.
When you call you talk to the owner Jerry, I've been buying my com gear from him for 20+ years, recommend him highly.

do you happen to run any of them on a HAAS mill?
If you do, can you transfer data using HAAS XMODEM?

 

[mhajicek]

usb to serial converter going to our laptop. perhaps ill buy a new cord, they're cheap. thanks for the tip

Those USB to serial converters are notoriously difficult to get functioning correctly. Most of them have internal buffering that screws everything up. These guys have one of the very few known to work:

Buy RS232 Cables, Testers, DNC, And hardware - CNC Specialty Store

 

[Mud]

do you happen to run any of them on a HAAS mill?
If you do, can you transfer data using HAAS XMODEM?

No Haas here, sorry. Call Jerry.

 

[mjk]

Did you have an update to your os of your laptop between the time you had success and a problem
Is your laptop going into sleep mode or a unusual screen saver?

I have a stand alone pc with XP for the cnc's in the shop.
(4 of the same machines sitting in a box ion case the shop one bites it)

 

[STEVEN7685]

Did you have an update to your os of your laptop between the time you had success and a problem
Is your laptop going into sleep mode or a unusual screen saver?

I have a stand alone pc with XP for the cnc's in the shop.
(4 of the same machines sitting in a box ion case the shop one bites it)

The laptop is windows 10, and it's connected to the internet since we share all of our files via Dropbox. So I'm sure it's had updates here and there.

The laptop is certainly not going to sleep those options are turned off. And there are no screen savers.

I've gotten the program to work today several times using haas xmodem, but from what I understand xmodem analyzes packets and resends them until they work (I'm sure I'm off on that some what). In doing so, the code functions and I'm making parts. However I've had to decrease my feeds to prevent catching up to the data transmission and over running the code. Had one part come out with a hammer tone look to it from all of the small jolts of the tool stopping when it caught up to the code, and re starting when more code loads.

Emailed dnc4u and asked if there's a way to send more packets at a time, a larger number of characters, or any way to make it send data faster to keep up. And since I have my machine baudrate maxed (38400) there's nothing else I can really do according to the tech at dnc4u.