Need help setting up a CNC Shop

[freestyle_web]

Alright well here goes. My dad asked me on Friday if I would look into setting his CNC machines up on a network for him. He said if I did he would pay for half of my new computer.

All 6 machines are connected by a cable for RS232 ports. His current setup is he has a computer in the front of his shop connected with the cable and then he manually connects the other end to whatever machine he wants to transfer the program file to.

My idea was to find a way to have all 6 machines connected to a router so he could just transfer files without having to switch the cable to a new machine every time a new program needed to be transferred.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks for the help

Dennis

[huggybear102]

How far are all the machines away from each other?

I understand networking, but not CNC machines. A little more detail might be a great help.

Edited March 3, 2008 by huggybear102

[freestyle_web]

How far are all the machines away from each other?

I understand networking, but not CNC machines. A little more detail might be a great help.

Think of the CnC machines as basically computers. They have a harddrive which he stores program files (basically a txt file with commands to tell the machine what to do).

They are all pretty close

[f3]

[f2] [b2]

[f1] [b1]

Thats how the machines are setup. The f1 / b2 stuff is just what he named the machines...

I just dont know how I could network all of them with that cable...as that port is the only data transfer port on the machine. Right now he is using a long ass cable to go from his front office to whatever machine he wants to transfer stuff to. Its a pain in the ass to drag the cable every time and its a pretty frail thing too.

[jamend]

Get few more cables, connect the machines to some old computers, and run some virtual serial port software that can forward them over a network. Old computers usually have 2+ serial ports, so just run each serial port on its own TCP/IP port and have 6 virtual serial ports on your dad's computer that connect to the respective real serial ports.

[freestyle_web]

Would there be a way to get an old computer and install a bunch of serial cards in it, then hook that computer to the front office by ethernet? Or would that not work?

[DrunkenMaster]

You lucky dude ... i've been wanting to use a CNC machine at some point in my life those things are awesome.

Anyways .... I think you might be looking for a KVM switch or something similar like here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....amp;x=0&y=0. You might have to buy two 4-port APCs for instance to hook-up the 6 CNC machines. There's also likely to be 8 or 16 port versions (I've seen them before ... Dell and APC have them I think) if you want to buy only one.

If you're plugging in the cable straight into the "mouse" serial port on the computer, I don't see why this wouldn't work. I'd buy a cheapo $30 one before investing serious money into one to try out.

If the machines don't work over TCP/IP and only a serial protocol, simply "networking" them together isn't a solution.

With a KVM, if you want to use machine "1", flip switch to "1", then machine "2", flip to "2" all the way to "6".

AFAIK, this is your best solution.

[Bgnn32]

A serial multiplexor would be ideal, something like a Digi Etherlite box or Portserver, but those are expensive.

Another option would be adding serial port cards to the computer, you would need the computer to be able to support 6 serial ports, most cards have 2 ports, so if the PC has room add 3 cards and run your cable.

Or you could use something like this: http://www.digi.com/products/usb/edgeport.jsp

Lots of options, cost will elimate some.

You lucky dude ... i've been wanting to use a CNC machine at some point in my life those things are awesome.

Anyways .... I think you might be looking for a KVM switch or something similar like here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....amp;x=0&y=0. You might have to buy two 4-port APCs for instance to hook-up the 6 CNC machines. There's also likely to be 8 or 16 port versions (I've seen them before ... Dell and APC have them I think) if you want to buy only one.

If you're plugging in the cable straight into the "mouse" serial port on the computer, I don't see why this wouldn't work. I'd buy a cheapo $30 one before investing serious money into one to try out.

If the machines don't work over TCP/IP and only a serial protocol, simply "networking" them together isn't a solution.

With a KVM, if you want to use machine "1", flip switch to "1", then machine "2", flip to "2" all the way to "6".

AFAIK, this is your best solution.

You obliviously aren't familiar with CNC machines, but that idea would never work, the RS-232 port is for communications, not a mouse.

The more I think about this would be your best and easiest soultion: http://store.digi.com/index.cfm?fuseaction...;Product_ID=132

[jamend]

Would there be a way to get an old computer and install a bunch of serial cards in it, then hook that computer to the front office by ethernet? Or would that not work?

Yeah that should work fine.

[Bgnn32]

Yeah that should work fine.

It would work, but that is adding another computer to the mix, and being an old computer, one that is probably going to be prone to breakdowns.

A workable solution, but not one I believe is the best.

[Fish]

We've got 4 CNC's and a CNC drilling machine, all connected to one PC via RS-232 which runs the Multi-DNC software. We manually switch between each machine as and when needed. Sure, it's "old" technology, but it works... I mean, how often do you need to communicate with the machines? For us, at the most we might send 2 or 3 different programs to a machine in a day, so really, flicking a switch isn't too much hassle. And anyway, the machines themselves can hold dozens of programs, so often it's just the tools that need setting because the program is already in there.

[freestyle_web]

We've got 4 CNC's and a CNC drilling machine, all connected to one PC via RS-232 which runs the Multi-DNC software. We manually switch between each machine as and when needed. Sure, it's "old" technology, but it works... I mean, how often do you need to communicate with the machines? For us, at the most we might send 2 or 3 different programs to a machine in a day, so really, flicking a switch isn't too much hassle. And anyway, the machines themselves can hold dozens of programs, so often it's just the tools that need setting because the program is already in there.

Wait. So you have all the machines connected into a RS-232 Box, which in turn connects into the computer. Then when you want to do different machines you just flip to "Machine 2" or whatever. This would be exactly what I'm looking for as right now my dad has to drag a cable around his shop just to transfer programs. He only transfers 2 or 3 programs a day but its a pain for him to manually connect so this is ideal.

Could you explain it a little more? Which box are you using? And how much is it going to cost? that one edgeport thing is 400 bucks and not really cost effective.

[Fish]

Exactly. All machines are connected to one simple switch box, which in turn is connected to a PC running the software to write the programs and send them to the machines. It's all RS-232 connections - nothing fancy. Newer versions of this software now support USB, so I expect it would be even easier to setup, but our's works for us, so we've no reason to upgrade.

http://www.multi-dnc.com/ This is what we use. It's not particularly cheap, but if you get a rep in and explain what you want, you can probably get a complete solution.

Btw, we used to run round with a PSION organiser to upload the programs before we had this setup, which was a PITA, so I know how your dad feels.

[Bgnn32]

Ok, Multi-dnc looks cool, but if he doesn't want to spend $400 on a switch box how exactly is buying a switch box and special software going to cost less?

And in the grand scheme of business cost $400 isn't bad, I mean the CNC's cost at least $100,000 and probably much more, but if you can't spend that much you can always turn to ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/Edgeport-8-USB-to-Seri...1QQcmdZViewItem

Also inside out networks and digi are the same company.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

Have you checked with the tech support department of the company who makes your current CNC equipment to see what sort of multi-port serial cards/port aggregators work with their software? It could be that their software only works with old hardware cards that support COM1 03F8 IRQ4, COM2 02F8 IRQ3, COM3 03E8 IRQ4 and COM4 02E8 IRQ3, and installing a PCI card or USB device that implements RS-323C ports on non-standard ports/IRQs will not work. A little bit of checking could save you from an expensive purchase which does not work.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

What type of CNC machines are there? Because at my old job, we had either the Windows operating system on them, and older ones, running some sort of Mazak DOS system. The windows CNC machines didn't allow transfering, while the old ones did. The new ones I heard COULD, but they needed a floppy drive installed, which costs $900+ per machine.

The program alone cost a lot, so I don't think it would be much help there, and we had an out-dated switchbox (i recommend getting a newer version) and a "Module" that just went into the printer port.

This was probably no help to you what so ever, lol, but at least you'll know what will work.

We did have a HAAS machine in the shop, which had an ethernet port on it. Maybe you could tell us what the machines have so we could help you more?