How to communicate with cnc?

[EdDRM]

 I Cannot find where to set up an RS232 connection.This is where you would set baud rate,delay,parity...etc I have been putting my posted programs on a thumb drive then loading them onto another pc which has Matercam and using that to send to the Haas or Fadal cncs.This works fine but we sold an old Compumill to a friend and are trying to get him rolling with Fusion360.Is it possible to set up RS232 with Fusion360? If not is there any free software out there?It was great to see a post processor for Dynapath.We posted a program and the gcode looked good.

Thanks in advance for any and all help,

                Ed

[Anonymous]

I'm interested to hear the response. I always assumed machines that used RS232 also accepted USB drives, memory cards, or other external media.

[EdDRM]

 The cnc we want to connect to is pretty old 1980s I think.I'm not sure if it even has a floppy drive.

[CGPM]

There is no communications in Fusion.  There are several free programs out there but the one I keep using is Hyperterminal.  It is pretty basic but that is part of why I like it.  The only downsides are you can only upload from the cnc to your computer a maximum of 500 lines, with the free version, or dnc.  It works fine on my Win7 Pro 64 bit computer and is supposed to work fine with Win8.1 too.  You will need to find it, possibly Hilgreave,s website, or if you have an XP computer handy, and load it.  If you wish to go this route let me know and I can give you more details.

[GPTech2444]

I tried using a FTDI usb to serial adapter on a 64bit win7 laptop and it wouldn't work, tried it on a 32 win7 laptop and it worked fine.

Onecnc have a free DNC program that will only work in 32bit and 2 other programs I liked the look of were AGG dnc precision and Edytornc http://sourceforge.net/projects/edytornc/ 

Thanks,

Grant.

[fonsecr]

Just FYI. We don't have a way to send through RS232 in Fusion. There are options both commercially and free to do this both it can be a bit of a trial and test to make sure the RS232 settings match between the computer and CNC.

[CGPM]

I have both HyperTerminal and AGG,s free dnc software installed and working on my computer.  HyperTerminal is just so much easier to use for simple file transferes than any other free program I have tried.  I also find it much easier to set up with a new machine.  AGG's program is much more involved and does't like something about my cabling to one of my mills, it loads real slow to the control.

I have a FTDI USB adapter and it works fine.  Here is the one I got http://www.usconverters.com/usb-serial-adapter-xs880   .  Just make sure you download the right driver.  Best option, for a desktop, is a serial port card.  Even though motherboards no longer have serial ports they still have a header to plug one into.  They are only $5-$10 for a single port card.

Getting your computer to communicate with your cnc control involves getting the standard settings correct, including for the cable you are using, such as how many wires you have hooked up.  Also you have to make sure your control is set correctly for how you have your cable wired.  Typically you have three options on the wiring, lot's of fun!  Add to that all the options in your communication software and you really start to go crazy.  One thing wrong and no worky.

The only thing that old means is you will have a slow connection,  your USB adapter or communication software won't care.

[GPTech2444 · Accepted solution]

Just an FYI, Gigabyte (there maybe others) still make a board with a serial and parallel port, http://www.gigabyte.com.au/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4679#sp
But it would cheaper to buy a card to fit to an existing pc.

[Anonymous]

That's our main problem. before we are using Mastercam to generate Gcodes, then we use NClink to send Gcodes to the machines using RS232 cable. We are using Windows 7 32-bit. Now the problem, Nclink will not work on Windows 7 64-bit. How can you recommend Fusion 320 to end-user if there's no solution how to send Gcode to the Machine. Our machine is very old. we need Rs232 cable to send Gcodes. And Fusion 360 will work only in a 64-bit environment. 

We spend thousands of Dollar to use this software. But we cannot maximize the used of this software. Now we will money again to buy software or gadgets to send Gcodes to the machine.

[Anonymous]

Actually onecnc nclink works perfectly fine in Windows 10 64bit I use it everyday on the same laptop I run fusion from. And connect to my machine with a usb-rs232 adapter to drip feed or transfer programs. 64bit is backwards compatible with 32bit software I don't know why people think it's not. Only 16bit software is'nt. If it doesn't work automatically then right click the program, go to properties and click the compatibility tab and to be safe select Windows xp service pack 3.

[Anonymous]

thanks to you. On the Side of Autodesk. They didn't know this. no recommendations. they only know the basic used for fusion 360. but in actual they didn't know how to used. even their resellers don't know how to used it