Hurco KM-3P serial communications

gr8legs

gr8legs

Active User
Rest In Peace
My 'MillZilla' is a Wells Index retrofitted with a Hurco KM-3P Programmer/Controller and no disk drive.

It has a serial port to download/upload programs which I can tweak the parameters to download (print) a properly formatted listing of the program in memory - so I think the parameters are correct at 9600 N-8-1 using XON/XOFF flow control.

However, when I try to download or upload a stored PROGRAM file in their CONVERSATIONAL mode it doesn't seem to work.

What is frustrating is that I think I used to be able to do it using Hyperterm in an older version of windows - now that the computer is Windows 7 I can't seem to find the right mix of parameters on the mill and computer to reliably transfer files.

Anyone have a similar situation that they've solved this problem?

Thanks in advance

Stu
 
Are you saying that you can still reliably transfer gcode but not conversational? Or has all transfer quit working? N-8-1 is the most common and 9600 was common but now days more likely to be 19200 or higher and actual serial comms like this is becoming a dinosaur. When you moved to Windows 7, did you change the Serial cable that you used (DB-25 to a DB-9) or other?
 
Boswell said:
Are you saying that you can still reliably transfer gcode but not conversational? Or has all transfer quit working? N-8-1 is the most common and 9600 was common but now days more likely to be 19200 or higher and actual serial comms like this is becoming a dinosaur. When you moved to Windows 7, did you change the Serial cable that you used (DB-25 to a DB-9) or other?
Click to expand...

I stay in Conversational mode as that is where the program was written on the machine - and I can transfer a printout of the program from Hurco to the PC and it is fine.

Transferring the Hurco conversational code (which is not G-Code) back and forth is the problem. It transfers (albeit it is strange looking code) from the Hurco to the PC OK (I think) but the other way either hangs or says 'checksum error' depending on which of the ways I have tried to make it work.

Worst case I can regenerate the program by manually entering the program from the printout in conversational mode but saving/retreiving the machine code would be much easier.

Thanks

Stu
 
ok, a few things. because you can transfer one direction, we should be able to assume that the hardware is probably OK (not 100% guarantee) and that you have the 9600, n,8,1 set on both systems correctly. You say that you are using XON/XOFF and that is a software protocol and was always somewhat problematic. It is even possible that in the upgrade to windows 7 the terminal software you are using no longer supports XON/XOFF or it does not do it well. If your cables support RTS/CTS (hardware version of flow control) then that is more reliable protocol. You will have to change the flow control style in the Hurco controller and the terminal software.
 
Actually, after a bit more dicking around with it I figured it out.

When the Hurco downloads to the PC it appends a CR/LF to the end of the data.

The Hurco expects a Control-D to terminate the upload and it was puking on the CR/LF instead of getting a CTRL-D.

So, a quick edit to the saved file, substituting CTRL-D for the CR/LF solved the problem. May even work without deleting the CR/LF, haven't tried that but problem is mostly solved.

I love computers!

Stu
 
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