RS232 communications via Bluetooth/Wireless

[DrB0b]

Hey all,
Have a question that hopefully someone else out there in CNC machine land can answer. Looking for a free CNC file transfer program like multi-dnc. Can't seem to find one and since we are going to be implementing a new RS232 to Bluetooth/Wireless adapters, need something to transfer over the medium. The Bluetooth comes with its own free software for managing the connections and I think file transfer but the Wifi doesnt.

Any thoughts?

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[xwb]

Could you just transfer the file over with 232 or use one of the ancient protocols like kermit.

 

[DrB0b]

Considering these will be fairly large files, created in CamLink by Griffo Bros, will kermit work with these larger files?

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[xwb]

In the early 90s we used to use it for 1Mb files and it was OK. Large is just a relative term. How large is large?

There were other protocols like Xmodem and Zmodem. It depends on what your CNC machine supports. Is it full 232 (i.e. with RTS & CTS) or 3 wire with xon xoff? Some protocols work better with RTS CTS, others with xon xoff.

Is it a binary program or a text program?

 

[DrB0b]

There will be times when a 100-300mb file will have to be transferred but that should be the largest.

Ill be honest, Ive done very little outside of consoling into a switch with an RS232. I know some of the CNC machines run in a DOS like environment and some in Windows XP/98 if that is any help.

Text program I believe.

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[JimInKS]

115K bps is about the top speed for RS232. This is approx 12KB/S (kilo bytes per second).

If your file is 300MB, 300MB / 12KB/S = 25,000 S or about 7 hours to transfer the file.

Am I missing something?
Do you know what the top data transfer rate is for your setup?

 

[FredWagner]

How did you transfer the files before ? if over RS232, you would still have been in the 7 hour time range... if the file size is really 100MB+, RS232 would have been hugely slow. Are you SURE these aren't 100kb files? You're not sending graphic images of the product the CNC is making, just a series of machine instructions, like move this distance, cut this deep, rotate the piece, make this cut, etc.

Fred Wagner

 

[DrB0b]

95% of the time it is 85-150kb files, its the odd time we have to do something special that requires a 100mb-300mb file and I wanted to be able to take care of all instances.
Before they would walk a USB, floppy, or PCIe card physically to the machine and they will do that for the large files, so lets pretend that we are only dealing with the 95% of "normal" size files.

I assume noone has actual experience with transferring files to a CNC machine and having it accept them, this is the part Im hazy on. Yea Im aware of the limit of RS232 and if was up to me would go USB to Bluetooth but I dont think all the CNC machine's software can load a program off USB. Trying to find a universal fix all so I dont have to do this 20 different ways for 24 machines.

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[FredWagner]

DrBob - how were you getting the 100MB+ files to the machines before? If RS232 was the only way before, it must have been very inconvenient. Do the machines Manufacturer have an upgrade to let them do USB natively?

Fred Wagner

 

[DrB0b]

As stated above, USB, Floppy, PCIe card

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[DrB0b]

Previously they were hand delivered, trying to get away from that.

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[FredWagner]

PCIe card...could you get a Wifi card to fit into a PCIe slot ?

Fred Wagner

 

[DrB0b]

So I think only a couple have that slot, half have USB and all have RS232, really dont want to mix and match but might have to.

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[FredWagner]

Use the most effective method with each, but do check with the Vendor for upgrades on the machines with RS232. You should be able to get WiFi modules for both the PCI and USB equipped units.
Some years back, I was with a part of our organization that signed up for a Hosted service, and for the client tracking module, provided thousands of mag-striped cards, and a dozen or so mag-stripe readers to put on our network. We had a 100BaseT network, and the readers would ONLY work with 10BaseT. Fortunately we had a lot of wiring in the building, with multiple cooperating tenants on three floors, and I was able to cobble together a separate 10BaseT system to make it work without running new cable or reprogramming our Cisco gear.

Fred Wagner

 

[DrB0b]

Ok, slightly different discussion but about the same hardware, Bluetooth to RS232. Ive consoled into switches and routers and configged that way but that was pretty much my extent with Serial connection.

There is a free Bluetooth Software that allows a dongle or built in bluetooth to talk to the RS232 to Serial adapter. After the connection is established, you are supposed to be able to use HyperTerminal, TeraTerm, or Putty to do data transmission but I cant for the life of me figure out how.

Any pointers?

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[MikeHalloran]

All of the few CNC machines with which I have experience are now old, and were built when memory was too expensive to waste on an embedded OS, or anything even close, or even store a program much bigger than 10k bytes in one piece.

My most recent experience was with a CNC plasma cutter, that was probably built around 1970. If you could interact with it via a terminal program, I never figured out how. It required a wired connection to a PC, where it could access programs (with names limited to a small subset of 8.3) stored in one specific directory. ... provided that its host/nesting/loading program was running on that PC at the time. The CNC baud rate could be adjusted via DIP switches, all the way up to 9600 baud or so. The host program could initialize a standard PC serial port. I have no idea what protocol it used on the wire.

The verbiage on the website suggests that Camlink similarly acts as a host/fileserver for the programs it produces, and knows how to talk to the CNC over the wire, even if you don't.

If your virtual 'wire' requires initialization by software, especially at the CNC end, you may need to do some hacking.

 

[DrB0b]

Alright, As far as RS232 goes, with the bluetooth adapter plugged in I should be able to talk to it via hyper-terminal or putty but I cant. Outside of plugging it in, powering it on and firing up hyper-terminal, what am I missing?

Also, If anyone knows any transferring software because the BlueSoliel that comes with the Dongle is basically a demo that only allows for 5MB transfer.

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[edfair]

Time to get something that works like a terminal and set it up for receiving on the serial port by jumpering the handshaking.

Break the CNC cable open and use the monitoring machine to look at the RD line or the TX line to see what infor is going each way.

Never have talked through bluetooth but on all others using async you should get some sort of signal going down the line. May not be valid as there are data bit lengths and parity that have to match up. If you don't know that something is going down the line you have no way of knowing if it is correct.

There are also 232 testers that will tell you what lines are active, but all I've seen aer 25pin to 25 pin so you might need 9/25 adapters on both ends, depending on what you have.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.