Easiturn problems with rs232 connection

[rab4steam]

hi all
this is my first post , but i have been an avid watcher from afar for about the last 12 months.
my problem is : i have a denford Easiturn cnc lathe with a fagor 8020tg control system (made 1989) & am having problems trying to connect to a pc using the rs232 connections , i can get the machine to transfer a program to the pc but not the other way round , i have spent hours possibly days messing about with this using all sorts of programs from all sorts of sources from the internet . i have tried using your denedit program but still no joy , the cable i am using is 25 pin to 25 pin that was supplied to the previous owner of my machine by denford.
can anybody help please before i tear the rest of my hair out.

[Lone_Ranger]

hi all
this is my first post , but i have been an avid watcher from afar for about the last 12 months.
my problem is : i have a denford easiturn cnc lathe with a fagor 8020tg control system (made 1989) & am having problems trying to connect to a pc using the rs232 connections , i can get the machine to transfer a program to the pc but not the other way round , i have spent hours possibly days messing about with this using all sorts of programs from all sorts of sources from the internet . i have tried using your denedit program but still no joy , the cable i am using is 25 pin to 25 pin that was supplied to the previous owner of my machine by denford.
can anybody help please before i tear the rest of my hair out.

I had exactly the same issues with my Denford Cyclone lathes when I got them, they are fitted with Fanuc controls but I doubt the RS232 system will be much if any different on the Fagor. My machines are 1989 and 1990 so are in the same era!!

There was a post put up by someone from EasyDNC, here is a link to it viewtopic.php?t=1078&highlight=rs232+fanuc

I also had a 25 pin to 25 pin just like you and I changed to a 25 pin at the machine end and a 9 pin at the PC end and used the info in the post to do the connections to enable RTS/CTS and XON/XOFF to be used, then I set up the DNC sofware I have (Predator) to use RTS/CTS "Hardware" system of communication and it worked perfectly, then I went one step further and got a USB adapter so I could use a Laptop which doesn`t have a 9 pin Serial connection and that also works perfectly!!
FYI USB to Serial adapter with Driver CD etc £10 from local PC shop and worth every penny!!

If there are any odd/different connections used on the Fagor control from the Fanuc I`m sure that one of the Denford guys on here will be able to help out with that or you could maybe contact Fagor for info on your particular control, here is a link to their website, I don`t know who does Fagor in the UK. http://www.fagor-automation.com/

Hope that is of some help to you.

Regards
Rob



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[rab4steam]

thank you for your prompt reply , sorry i haven't replied earlier i have been very busy for the last 2 days.
i have been on the fagor site but could find no details of the 8020tg control so presume it is not supported any more.
the easy dnc site is very interesting ,i have downloaded their program but i am still having the same problems even with a brand new cable 25 pin to 9 pin specially made for me by a friend . i will have to keep playing with the program & its parameters to see if i can get it to work.
does anybody know what the file extension should be for the fagor control to accept a program sent it , should it be a .txt file or an .nc file or something else ,the machine will not accept a file that has been downloaded from itself.
robert

[Lone_Ranger]

thank you for your prompt reply , sorry i haven't replied earlier i have been very busy for the last 2 days.
i have been on the fagor site but could find no details of the 8020tg control so presume it is not supported any more.
the easy dnc site is very interesting ,i have downloaded their program but i am still having the same problems even with a brand new cable 25 pin to 9 pin specially made for me by a friend . i will have to keep playing with the program & its parameters to see if i can get it to work.
does anybody know what the file extension should be for the fagor control to accept a program sent it , should it be a .txt file or an .nc file or something else ,the machine will not accept a file that has been downloaded from itself.
robert

Hi Robert

I think it will be something to do with the settings of things like Parity, Bit Rate, Odd/Even etc unless there are some oddly different connections needed for the cable but it worked fine for me.

I have had a look in my Cad/CAM software for a Fagor Post processor and found one for the Fagor8055M, I doubt if the format will be any different from the Fagor you have.
I opened one of my drawings up and generated the G code using the Fagor8055M Post processor and there doesn`t seem to be anything special at the begining of the code that would stop it loading, only thing that seems to be needed is the usual % sign at the begining and end of the program. No special characters that I can see.

Once your G code file is in your DNC software it is then usually a Text file, you can use Notepad, Wordpad,MS Word to Edit your code and also Hyper Terminal which will also upload to your machine without the need to buy any DNC software.

When I download a program from my machines I get some weird characters at the begining, eg a square, a couple of letters and a colon :, if I try to load it back without editing that stuff out again it won`t go up so I have to take it out, no idea why it does it and neither does anyone else I know but there again it is Fanuc which is a law unto itself!!!

Regards
Rob