Friend has a Koike D11

A friend of mine who runs a metal shop recently bought a Koike D11 which connects via serial. The computer that came with it has some physical issues, so I built him a new standard computer with some modern parts. I was wondering if LinuxCNC is at all capable of function with Koike D11. I'm going to visit him later today to see if I can do more for him. Any advice and guides are totally welcomed and thanked for!

Hi

Linuxcnc is not a DNC program, it is a complete machine controller, so does not connect via RS232 and send commands and drip feed large programs etc.
It conects directly via a parport cable (normally) and interface and directly controls hardware.

You can either; use a commercial DNC program, they are all windoze that I found, write your own (I have done this and can give you a start if you can program in C++), send commands via a comms program (albeit this is rather long winded and may be limited as to what you can achieve) or remove the controller and convert it to be controlled by Linuxcnc.

If you just want to be able to use the machine 'as is', the first option is the easiest.

Various ones will give the option to try them out with limited functionality and then buy the full program when you have assured yourself it will work.

regards

Can you break down the pricing estimately between all the choices? For example would a new controller be more affordable than buying the software? The programming one looks interesting, but I'd like to present him with some thoughts on the matter before making any immediate choices for him.

Can you break down the pricing estimately between all the choices?

Not really.

The machine would appear to be a plasma cutter?

LOW) Software will cost whatever the price of the one you decide upon is. No more than a few hundred pounds I should think.

HIGH) New controller, hugely expensive and would involve the same work as required to operate it from linuxcnc.

LOW - MED) Linuxcnc requires suitable interface boards, wiring and configuration setup assuming the original servos, amps switches etc can be use
Not only requires machine down time but detailed knowledge of the way it currently operates hardware wise and a steepish learning curve on doing linuxcnc conversion.

Programming, requires detailed knowledge of the protocols, baud rate stop bits etc plus general programming knowledge.
I can point you to the source for the one I wrote to give you a step up.

Depends if you are making a living from it or doing it as a project.

I would get a shareware version of a windoze dnc program that claims to support it and see if it works first, then decide.

regards

I found this. Someone made a Linux version of easyDNC. If I install LinuxCNC and easyDNC he'll have the future options of upgrading his equipment later. Also any CAMCAD programs for Linux?

www.dnc-x.com/index.html

Yes it's a plasma cutter.

There is a complete forum topic on it

www.linuxcnc.org/index.php/english/forum/31-cad-cam

I found this. Someone made a Linux version of easyDNC.
www.dnc-x.com/index.html

Its good to see this has been ported to Linux.
It was only available as a windoze app when I looked

The defaults look reasonable except the baud rate of 1200. 9600 would be more likely even on an old controller
Certainly worth a go

regards

Yeah I was thinking that too. I'm still planning to use linux when I can find one that works with the software. It just kept misbehaving, so I'm currently using a really small modified version of Windoze. I put a solid state drive in the computer originally it's pretty bad ass. Boots up in a split second, but it's only 30 gbs. I figured size wasn't important with thumb drives being used for work. You should have seen how fast Ubuntu loaded. It literally had no loading screen. Anyway I'm going to get a scan of the CNC system settings, he bought the machinary and the document for it's configuration is old and I personally can't translate it to what it means inside of any DNC software. Your help has been remarkable, thank you!

Here's the configuration on the device. What does it translate to? They use different words for everything except baude rate and ASCII. Thanks again!

Hi

It is strange that is for sure.

Parity ignore is fairly straight forward, just means 8 bit without parity check

Usually the codes for serial comms are from 0x00 to 0x1F of the ASCII table and very few would use all of them
For instance
0x05 ENQ
0x06 ACK
0x15 NAK

The numbers you have do not match normal codes and the text refers to standard codes as well
Scan for CTRL-Z in download (^Z or 0x1A is the EOF code)
Send EOT upon download fail (0x04 or ^D is end of transmission)

If you cannot get easyDNC to communicate with 8bit no parity at 19200 baud rate,
I think you are just going to have to use a comms program like CuteCom and try to talk to the controller and work out what it responds to.

Try something like "\x02 GOOX0 \x03" and see if you get movement and an ACK

regards