Starmill pc 1995

[timber]

Hi all and Happy Holidays.

I have just bought a machine like the one in this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2110

It came with a pc running millenium edition (window 98 essentially)

All software installed.

Came with a dongle, milling machine itself, the big black power and control box, desktop tutor. I also bought a parallel gender changer because it looked like I needed it to connect the dongle to the other leads.

But I can't get anything to work and I'm not sure I.m doing it right or which leads to connect where.

I have tried the desktop tutor connected on its own and without the computer.

I have tried the computer without the desktop tutor keyboard.

I have tried both.

Black box powers up ok. All fuses look good. Software appears to work. (2 programmes at least; Fanuc - DOS based _ howdo I use that - do I need to know commands? and Millcam designer ) Don't know if power is getting to milling machine though.

With everthing connected as I guess it goes, I use Millcam designer to draw a circle, but then what? There is no START, or MILL or BEGIN or anything, just print, not even a CNC OUTPUT command?

So what leads go where?
How do I get it to work then?

Any help would be very gratefully received. Many thanks for any help.
Tim

[Mr Magoo]

Hi Tim...
Here is some useful info...
1) Your dongle connection in the picture is correct. NOTE that nothing plugs into the other end of the dongle. It just sits in there on its own!
2) Your computer will (hopefully) have 2 x serial ports (sometimes called COM ports or RS232 ports). I can see one on the photo of the back of the computer marked "Anything Go Here?". The Tutor keypad will probably go here (it depends on how the software is set up) using one of the 2 x moulded cables.
3) The machine is connected using the cable with the metal cover at one end, and connects to the 'other' serial port on the computer (which I can't see from your photo). This 'other' serial port may be a 25 pin male connector, or another 9 pin connector like the one used for the tutor, in which case you may need to use the other moulded lead in line with the machine lead to convert this from a 9 pin to a 25 pin conenctor to suit the machine.

Make sense? If not then attach more photos of the back of the computer and we should be able to work out what goes where.

Cheers
james

[timber]

Thanks James.

At least I may be able to get some of the cables in the right place now.

And there I've been shoving all manner of things on the end of that dongle !

I'd never have figured out to leave it alone without your help.

Will give it a go and see what happens.

Thanks again.

Tim

[Denford Admin]

With everthing connected as I guess it goes, I use Millcam designer to draw a circle, but then what? There is no START, or MILL or BEGIN or anything, just print, not even a CNC OUTPUT command?

Millcam will simply produce a plain text G-code file with an extension like .fnc which you will then load into the Fanuc_x CNC software
I think the default output directory is C:\Denford\Data - have a look in there for some previously created CNC files...

[timber]

Ah ha !

Thanks for that.

Cheers

[Martin]

There should be a Create G_code tab in Mill Cam Designer that alows you set the G Code Parameters & create the file(Make File)

[timber]

Thanks for that too.

I must get this going sooner or later.

Cheers,
Tim