MICRO DNC 2 - tested

I struggled to find much info on these before I pulled the trigger, so sharing this in case it is any use to others.

The unit is a small DNC drip feed to rs232 device that acts as a standalone micro PC, it has wifi and USB slots and can download files off the controller, upload them to the controller or drip feed them to the controller.

Seemed a good purchase, as I don't have a PC in the shop, I use my laptop, and didn't fancy drip feeding whilst running CAD/CAM on the same machine in case something stuttered, plus if someone else is running the machines (plans for the future) then I can't always leave my laptop at the shop.

I was considering buying an old PC to do it, but by the time I bought it, monitor, keyboard, mouse, licences for OS etc it would have been a similar price - so I figured I had nothing to loose.

I was fully expecting a horror box of a job getting it to talk to my retro Fanuc OT-B lathe, but I plugged it in, stuck it to the side of the machine using the magnets and it fired up (power off the rs-232 cable) and I downloaded the parameters by only changing the baud rate to the 4800 required by my control.

Uploading a program was just as straight forward, straight off a usb stick in the side of the mico DNC 2, straight into the control.

Need to try DNC a file next, but never done lathe CAD/CAM before (always hand coded) so need to set up tool libraries etc. My test file was about 10 lines long and hand written in notepad on my PC.

I haven't tested the wifi, but a USB stick is super quick, and a workflow I am used to with my HAAS mill, so I am very happy.

£170 well spent.

Is that the one on ebay that has the screen on it where you can watch a backplot of your code?

Yes, this is a link to the one I bought

MICRO DNC 2 . DNC RS232. DNC DEVICE FOR CNC MACHINE | eBay

Well thanks for posting about it. I linked to it in another thread weeks ago and it seemed like no on had heard of it.
I'm considering this similar one, glad to hear they work.
Micro DNC - Low cost USB READER for CNC machines - USB to RS232 converter 851059006631 | eBay

If I have understood that is the one without wifi, I only found one positive review of it, the rest seemed like sellers posts trying to flog it, so figured it would be helpful to share.

Hey Bud

Just wondered if you could give an update on how this has been working since you had it. Any issues or has it been nice and simple and reliable.

Looking at getting one for our Cobra 42 we recently picked up.

Thanks.

danpayneuk said:

Hey Bud

Just wondered if you could give an update on how this has been working since you had it. Any issues or has it been nice and simple and reliable.

Looking at getting one for our Cobra 42 we recently picked up.

Thanks.

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I have a similar unit called titan dnc:
https://www.ebay.com/p/2106117018

It works well. No issues. Does not have wifi, and if it did, I would not use it. Be sure to get a 5 wire cable instead of the 3.

Will check that one out. Thanks

We just purchased a Micro DNC 2 to transfer files to and from an old Fadal VMC 6030. When testing it out, it doesn't appear that we can transfer files from the DNC back to a computer. Is that correct? Is it possible to transfer from the DNC to an USB drive?