Denford Software & Machines

Can anyone advise what format the signals carried on the rs232 cable between the back of the Triac and the toolchanger cabnets are, or even better the actual code for the signals? I am trying to figure out how to control the toolchanger from my PC (mach3) without ripping out all the original ATC electronics and starting again. I have measured the signal on my oscilloscope but need to know which of the rs232 languages it conforms too e.g. ab ascii. Actually it would me more correct to say the gent who is very kindly helping me needs to know this info.

thanks ...Sweep

To solve my problem I am told that I need the "command codes the software used to talk to the ATC controller."
I am sure that some of you will understand what this means, but does anyone have access to this code. I am desperate for this as I really do not want to dump the ATC from the Mach3 setup.

Thanks again ...Sweep

Sweep

Why not sort out a second PC andrecord the traffic on the RS232 lines?

I did this about 5 years ago when working on some equipment.

For Example -
https://www.lammertbies.nl/comm/cable/RS ... nitor.html
https://www.aggsoft.com/serial-port-moni ... onitor.htm

Cheers

Dave

Hi David,

As you have suggested, I have already been monitoring the flow of data on the RS232 cable by Hyperterminal, Mach3's built in Serial port monitor, and also with my digital oscilloscope.
From the switch info for the SMCU on North Eastern Electronics website, I should be operating at 1200baud with 'odd' parity. The problem is that when I capture the signal as text and then 'fire' it back at the oscilloscope the trace is never the same as the original trace taken directly from the Triac. I have also tried it with every conventional baud rate (300,600,1200...etc) with 7bit and 8bit strings but I can never get it the same.
I have attached a scope trace from the original Traic signal to see if it makes sense to anyone but I guess that's a bit of a tall order.
Any suggestions David??

...Sweep

Are you trying to send strings of characters, or a single character?

When I wrote some software to work with the Triac a while back. I had major problems talking to it. Now Baud rates should sort everything out, but I couldn't get them to! In the end I had to put a software loop delay between the sending of each character and that made things work. I know that sounds really stupid, but it took me weeks to work that out. You might want to try and write a little app to send a line to the machine with delays between each character.

Also are you using a laptop, some have terrible switching thresholds on their serial and parallel ports to try and save battery.

Cheers

Dave

Talk about re-inventing the wheel!
After weeks of frustration of receiving code strings of one length only to record them of shorter length when monitored on my scope, I finally sussed last night that there is an approx 9.5 millisecond delay between each character byte sent !!
Using Hyperterminal it allows yo to insert this delay but only in whole numbers i.e. 8, 9, 10... millisecond, so t is actually soewhere between 9 and 10.
I should be able to write a pause in Virtual Basic to mimick this effect.
As for tonights experiments I am going to se if I can prompt the ATC to work when the signal, with delays, is fired at it from Hyperterminal.
Thanks for your comments David ...just wish they had ahave come a couple of weeks ago

...Sweep

Can you post a picture of the inside of the NEE control box?
David

Hi Guys,

I've not been watching the forum for a while and only just seen this thread - thought I'd give my 2 cents worth...

The controller inside the ATC box is modified North East Electronics (NEE) SMCU board. NEE did special firmware to implement the link between the CNC, but it is possible that the serial link uses standard SMCU commands (I dunno?)

You can download the SMCU interface spec here
https://www.nee-controls.com/legacy_downloads.html
The doc give details of checksums etc so may help in decoding the serial data structure.

More info - The additional serial port needed in the Triacs main controller to talk to the ATC box was implemented purely in software (no uarts or stuff available), hence the delays needed between characters etc.

All this may be a red herring but worth mentioning...