Chris D

08-31-2005, 08:41 AM
We have this old clunker….Its a Hitachi Seiki VA-40 equipped with a Fanuc 6m control. We purchased a
premade cable and hooked the machine up to a pc. While we have no problems transferring programs back
and forth between the pc and machine, we can’t seem to get the machine to dnc properly. Seems like the
control only reads a portion of the program and then stops.

Now, I have asked some other people what they thought and it seems like we have been getting mixed
results. Some say that control can’t DNC, some say it can if we change a parameter, some say it will only
DNC if we purchase a btr board. I would have no problem purchasing a btr board, I just want to make sure
that is the only option before we spend $$$$ on this machine.

Anybody have any experience with this issue on this control or have any suggestions?

Like all Fanuc controls, you may or may not have the features needed to do it. What you need on the
machine is this...

Tape Mode on the mode selector switch.

RS-232 serial port on the machine.

If you have those two features, then you should be able to "Drip feed". You will need to set the parameters
up for the proper handshaking and communications speed. I would recommend X-on X-Off handshaking ( I
believe Fanuc refers to that as "control codes are used".

Make sure the software you are using is configured for the same protocol. If you are using hardwire
handshaking, make sure the cable is correct.

TO use...

Put machine in Tape mode.

Press Cycle start... machine waits for CNC program

Send program to machine from your software

Machine begins running the cycle.

Single block, dry run, etc. all work fine with Tape mode.

Chris

TR MFG

Drip-Feed

When the NC program is too large to fit into the CNCs memory, it can still be run, by the PC feeding the
data to the CNC as it needs it. Not all CNC can do this. The problem is to keep the CNCs buffer full of
data without ever going empty, because if the CNC is "starved for data" the part being machined could be
ruined. Care must be taken to insure that, no corrupted data is ever processed by the CNC, or data is
lost. The PC must remain "ON-LINE" during the execution of the program, turning the PC off, or
"Suspending" to save power would be a disaster.

Drip Feed:
DNC Server supports drip feeding the program to the machine control in the same way as normal
sending, if the control supports it and you have the proper handshaking. On Most controls this is an
optional feature, so yours may not support it. On Fanuc, set the mode switch to "Tape" and input
parameters to "RS-232".
Loop Feature - When sending a program from the edit window its possible to put a Loop Comment code
in the program so a section of the program will be repeatedly sent out to the control. With this you could
set DNC Server to drip feed a long program continuously repeating itself so you don't have to go to the
computer to send the program each time.

The Loop Comment Code is "(LOOP " and the block number to jump to.

Example:

G90G00X-4.1312Y.6502
N45G00Z.1
G01Z-.3F20.
G41D0G01X-4.3312F2.0
X-4.3914
G03X-4.7657Y.2987I0.J-.375
Y-.2987I4.7657J-.2987
X-4.3914Y-.6502I.3743J.0235
G01X-4.3312
(LOOP 45)
G40X-4.1312
G00Z3.0

In this example, when DNC Server reads the line "(LOOP 45)" it finds block number N45 and jumps to
that line and continues sending. This will loop forever between the two lines continuously sending out the
lines to the control. If you want to loop only for a certain number of times, use a comma and the number
of loops to execute. (LOOP 45,4) will repeat 4 times and then continue with the next line after the loop.

Nested loops won't work.

"When executing short moves, the control may want to process data faster than the communications:
system can send it. Executing long moves allows the system to supply data faster than required. As
long as the average rate of data execution is less than the communications rate, the CNC will never
starve for data. The size of the buffer determine the period over which the difference between
communication input and execution output can be averaged. The larger the buffer, the less likely the
control will be starved."

Billhardt says some controls permit operation in a direct tape mode with input taken from an EIA 232
port rather than the tape reader. Starvation is more likely because of the very limited buffer between
input and the point of execution. For this reason, he recommends avoiding direct tape mode
processing without an extended buffer when programs have a lot of short increments that must be
processed at high feed rates.

Reply
Date: 01/28/08
Author: Dan Fritz - Suburban Machinery Software, Inc.
Subject: Buffer overflow alarm
You can fix the buffer overflow alarm by improving the way your DNC software handshakes
with the CNC. When the CNC's buffer gets nearly full, it sends an Xoff character (same as DC3,
or ASCII #19). The DNC system must stop sending within 10 characters or else the Fanuc buffer
will overflow.
Some DNC software is better than others in this regard, but you MUST set your DNC software
to handshake with Xon/Xoff protocol.

Also, Windows serial ports have a 16-character FIFO buffer, which you must adjust to 1 or 2
characters in the Windows Control Panel. Here is the procedure for Windows 2000/XP:

Start/Settings/Control Panel
System
Hardware
Device Manager
Double-click "Ports COM and LPT"
Right-click on COM port you are using
Properties
Port Settings
Advanced

Set the slider for "Transmit buffer" all the way to the left (lowest setting). Click OK to exit all
menus.

Restart your DNC software and try again