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DOS RS232 logger?


bizzybody

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I have a small CNC milling machine from the 1990's. The only software available to operate it is for DOS. I'm going to setup an older computer with Windows 95b and see if the DOS program will run under Windows and control the mill. I did find one mention of a person running it in WinMe.

 

I want to be able to capture everything passing to and from the mill while it's operating. The Animatics servo controller in the mill can be accessed via a terminal mode in the DOS software but there's only very limited documentation about its capabilities and commands. If the mill is operating properly, none of that needs to be fiddled with.

 

The goal is to collect the communications data so that the mill can be controlled with modern CAM software for Windows and Linux.

 

Moog bought Animatics and apparently trashed all documentation on all products prior to the purchase. If Intelitek (who bought Light Machines sometime in the 1st decade of the 21st century) has any info on the communications protocol, they won't release it. (I asked, answer was "not available".)

 

Purdue University (at Lafayette, not Calumet) in the late 1990's developed their own software to control this Light Machines Corporation proLIGHT PLM2000 milling machine, but since it's been 15 years since the end of the CAD-LAB and the professor in charge of it retired a year or two ago, and archive.org didn't snag anything from their FTP server due to a robots.txt file (which expressly *permitted* archiving) there's pretty much zero chance of obtaining a copy of anything from that project. Unless one of the students took copies home and has had them in a box since 1999~2000, or someone back then poking around public FTP servers downloaded it and has kept it.

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Well, AFAICR the Wayback Machine "automatic" parser  has had for years a "preference" for http (skipping most if not all ftp links) and the ftp contents are mostly (if not all) manually submitted, so it is not surprising :(.

 

You should look not for a RS232 "logger" (which will return you a zillion hardware devices) but rather for a serial or RS232 "monitor" or "eavesdropper", like:

http://www.niobrara.com/html/dos-sw.html

or:

http://www.filewatcher.com/m/COMTAP21.ZIP.132880-0.html

 

jaclaz

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I use window's hyperterminal  to capture data via rs232  using com ports.   Most are analytical instruments from 80's and 90's.  Every one of them needs a null modem adapter somewhere in the cable.  I had to keep trying different baud rates (in hyperterminal) till I got the right one.

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I tested it last night and surprise, the DOS software will run under XP and XP allows it to communicate with the milling machine, so I should be able to use a logging program for Windows.

 

Edit: Well, not so much. XP kept butting in and cutting off COM port communication and a realtime COM port driver for DOS software only made the DOS software run really slow for a short while then freeze. So I'll try Win95 OSR2.

Edited by bizzybody
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