blasterlogoboss

How do you connect the other end of the RS-232 cable, to the lap-top? An adapter for THAT would be WAYYYYYY too convenient!Hmm. Up-'til the mid 2000's, serial and parallel ports were standard issue on most laptops, even the cheapest bottomfeeders.The ultra thin ones sometimes had a PCMCIA slot, for which you can get almost any adapter card from memory to modem and serial/parallel port.My HP is from 2008 and it still has 2 (9 pin) serial and 1 parallel ports.On edit:If you need something all modern, you can still go with a Dell laptop and add this thing for just under $60. After looking over all the options and our main problem is the floppy discs themselves. I had some NOS floppys fail out of the box so it is time to change.

• File Transfer Using Rs232 Driver
• File Transfer Using Rs232 Software

The cheapest way is to change the floppy drive unit to one that takes a usb connector so I can use a sub flash memory device. I will still only have 1.44mb of memory but that is plenty for me. Other options were to get a $600 portable device or wire in a network but since I do have computers at each cell of machines and the floppy drive replacement is $ 21 bucks that is the way I'm going. I hate to be the one that would drop the portable $600 unit while using it.John.

File Transfer Using Rs232 Driver

We use a laptop as well and it works great for our situation.One uses RS232 and the other is USB, I have a custom built box just for the lap top to keep it protected from the not so nice shop environment.I ordered the cabling, RS232 to USB adapter and null modem (goes between the adapter and serial cable, I dunno WTF but wont work without it) for $30.If you go that rout you will need software on the PC that lets all that work. We have cam software but there are programs like EasyDNC that I have used that work great, I thinkEasyDNC is like $130 or so, there are others I am sure and maybe even some old freeware.You wouldn't need a high end laptop by any means at all, even an 5 year old PC would handle this, just make sure to back up your files often.

There has to be 100 ways to skin this cat which makes me wonder how hard you have looked.Laptop, easy, simple, straight forward and cheap. Very common, easy and clean.Smart phone and bluetooth or wi-fi box to plug into machine, compact, a bit of a pain to get working right.Wireless box you can move to machines and talking to your computer network is another. How about wireless laptop to your network and 232 port?USB to disk drive interfaces.I do not work in your shop so I surely can not 'advise' on the best way for you and the best way for anyone 10 years ago may be very different today.(stick the part programs in the 'cloud', black box to access????

Crazy new stuff but hmmm.)The list is just about endless today.Be thankful that you don't have to work with punched tapes anymore.Now I can connect to, program, and monitor a machine on the other side of the globe in less than a second.10 year old kids can get almost real time video out of China. Across your shop floor should be not a big deal.We are sitting in the middle of an explosion of data transfer. The tricky part being how to get the Fanuc OM-A 232 port to grab it's piece.Bob.

File Transfer Using Rs232 Software

Older Panasonic 'toughbook' laptops can be gotten cheap on fleabay; these have serial and all sorts of ports. I bought a couple year old brand new one for $200, both for talking to a heidenhain controller and Plc programming.

Serial to USB 'usually' works, but why risk it or try to track some phantom problem due this extra layer of conversion. Panasonic and dell still make laptops with serial ports for industrial use. Craigslist also usually has some Toughbooks for sale if in a fairly large town. Greetings, my company Highland DNC make a popular low cost device called ShopLink FLASH, only $229 + $7 shipping. We have out sold all our competitors with OVER 1300 sold.

We have installed our units on all Gcode compatible CNC controls with flawless operation. See or call 941-322-2286 for more information. YES drip feed (DNCTAPE) a program up to 2 gigs long, WOW!

The reason we sell 10X more than anybody is USFlorida based customer service 247, if your phone call isn't answered email and I will call you (US only).

DNC software program and code editor for easy RS232 CNC file transfer 60 day free trialEasy to use DNC software for RS232 CNC machines - free 60 day trial Once you have setup all your CNCparameters (see below) it is so easy to send DNC files toyour CNC machine. If you have a file already open in the editorwindow, all you have to do is press the big Window icon -or press F3. Too many dnc software packages have, in our opinion,become too cluttered and difficult to use by non-computerliterate personnel - we have tried to make our dnc softwareprogram as easy as possible to use with the minimum numberof mouse clicks and non-essential icons.There is no limit to the size of files you can send to yourCNC, so you can drip-feed incredibly large files with no lossin speed. Many free file transfer programs,such as Windows Terminal and many other DNC software packagesjust don't have enough 'tweaks' to enable you tosend successfully to your CNC.

This is because many CNC machinesare very temperamental about the way that data is transferredto it - it has to be just right or it won't work.Our dnc4U software has many such tweaks for successful filetransfer; we have included many essential parameters to helpyou get it right.There are several different types of DNC send transferswith dnc4U.Block Send. This is the most common type oftransfer and is used when simply sending to your CNCs memory.It takes the NC code and sends it block by block.Drip Feed. Sending in drip-feed mode createsa temporary image of your file. This has a double advantage.First it is so much faster to send data from your local harddrive, than it is to drag the data off a remote network drive.Second, should your file be located on a server, and the servercrashes, transfer is not aborted because the file is no longerthere. This is very important on long jobs taking severalhours or overnight light outs jobs. The last thing you needis to walk into the jobshop in the morning to find the CNChung there because the network has crashed.Turbo Drip Feed. This mode is basically thesame as above, but the file is not shown scrolling on screen,and all statuses are updating just once a minute.

This makesfor even faster transfer.Executive Tape. This mode makes a perfect copyof the file and transfers it. Unlike drip-feed or block sendwhere the file may be transformed from your NC code to codeacceptable by your CNC - for eg end of block transformationor any send before or send after file CNC control codes, thismode is totally unchanged. This is useful for making backupsof your CNCs executive tapes.Drip In X Byte Chunks. Field manual 5-434 earthmoving operations 1. This feature is veryuseful with some older CNC & PC combinations and drip-feeding.Fanucs for example will only issue an XOFF when there areless than 10 bytes in it's receive buffer.

Responding to thisfast enough can be a challenge for older PC's. If you dripat say 9 byte chunks, then there is much less chance of abuffer oveflow on the CNC.Com Portsdnc4U lets you set up as many as 64 CNC machines, with serialports com1 to com128; more than adequate for the small, mediumor large machine shop. This is a standard configuration, nomessing about with upgrades like other DNC software packagesthat require more cash if you want to add more CNCs!Because you can use a dedicated com port for each of yourCNC machines you can easily use multi-port serial cards insideyour computer thus eliminating those messy switch boxes! Dnc4Ufully supports these type of cards, as well as 'normal'serial ports, USB devices and wireless/RS232/ethernet devicestoo.We recommend, they are reliable, cheapand easily available in the US and elsewhere.

They work withVista straight out of the bubble pack! If you already havea USB to RS232 and it only works one way, the Keyspan willalmost certainly work! In the UK we have bought them from,elsewehere they are also readily available and they work!  Baudrates from 150 to 460800are supported. Detect available com ports.