Communication problem between PC DMIS and FARO arm

What was the exact error given to you?

A while back, I was looking into purchasing a Faro Arm and putting PCDmis on it. The salesman at Faro told me that it would cost roughly $4000 for some kind of converter to allow PCDmis to run on a Faro Arm. I never did find out if it was a seperate unit or inside the laptop. Were there any special cards in your old laptop, or a box between the laptop and Arm? This is a special case, you may need to call in someone to help you. Call or email this guy:
Walter Bentley 416-522-9064 walter.bentley@faro.com

He may be able to help you.

We use v4.2 and v4.3 with FARO Arms. A $4000 converter is not needed. When switching between programs that use the same arm, shut down the arm before loading PC-DMIS. Turn on the arm then start up PC-DMIS.

Ed,

You didn't have to buy some special interface? I don't know if it's software or hardware, but I don't know why Faro would have lied to me about it?!? They specifically said to be ready to tack on $4K to the regular cost of PCDmis for this interface to allow it to work on the Faro ARm?

Gabriela,

Did you export your registry settings from your old computer? You will need to import those when you install PCDMIS on a new computer. They have a setting for the Faro interface. See help file on PCDMIS Settings Editor.

Did you export your registry settings from your old computer?

I would start with the settings as Jace suggests.

If you have an older COMM port arm, like the Faro 'Silver', you may want to pay attention to the COMM port settings on the PC. Your new PC likely has only one COMM port, and it is likely named COM1, but Windows is capable of having a different configuration. Make sure that PC-DMIS has the correct COMM settings.

If you have a USB arm, like the Faro 'Platinum' or 'Advantage', you need to install the FaroArm USB driver. Use what you have, get a copy from Faro, or download it from the Wilcox FTP site at ftp://ftp.wilcoxassoc.com/AfterMarket/3rdPartyDrivers/Faro/FaroArmUsbDriver5.exe.

$4000 for some kind of converter

I have installed PC-DMIS on new PCs of more than twenty Faro arms, using every release of PC-DMIS from v3.2063 through v4.3MR1, and I have not used or heard of any additional item needed to run PC-DMIS on a Faro arm.

Thanks for the info. Sorry I was wrong on that. Wish I knew why I was told differently.

Thanks for the info. Sorry I was wrong on that. Wish I knew why I was told differently.

I was told a similiar scenario by a Faro demonstrator. My My My

Sorry, they lied. It's sad they do that to make sure you don't put PC-DMIS on it. If you call them, they'll tell you they were sorry and they thought it was true, or it was true a long time ago. It was never true.

Also, and to the post... It might be the interfac or the registry settings. Try making a copy of Faro.dll in the PC-dMIS directory and renaming it to interfac.dll.

Also export your registry on old computer, and import on new computer.