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Offline Program with an Online Seat

I know this isn't news to many currently using the forum, but for those interested in offline programming when all they have is an online seat (dongle's married to a CMM), there was in the past a workaround to programming offline, that may still work for you.

Download and install PCDmis version 3.5 or earlier on a computer you want to offline program from. Locate the file interfac.dll in the install folder and rename it to anything other than interfac.dll. Plug your dongle into the USB port, and you're good to go. You may not be programming in the latest version, but any newer version will open the older versions saves, and furthermore, with a program like UltraVNC, you can remote access the computer you've set up and program from anywhere.

The only issue is that you can't run your CMM while you have the dongle in another computer.
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  • Brian, you should be able to continue using pcdmis offline if a machine error occurs.
    That way you can save any work you have done without being able to use the cmm directly.
    Is it possible to have pcdmis switch to the offline interface if the cmm hardware kicks out an error message?


    You can save your work when such a machine error occurs. It's not 100% foolproof, but you can.

    When the error comes up for whatever that requires you to shut down pc-dmis it gives you two options "OK" and "Shutdown" correct? If you click "OK" it pops back up immediately right? Well, not quite - at least not as far as the computer is concerned. If you use your left hand to hold the ctrl key and hit s repeatedly and use your right hand to click on "OK", you can get it to save. You have to go through the error window several times sometimes, but it will save (sometimes). After you think it has saved click on "shutdown". Hopefully it worked.

    Give it a try. Open a program, insert a move point at the end, don't save it, hit the e-stop. You'll get the error message. Do the above steps, shutdown PC-DMIS, restart it, open your program and see if the move point is there.

    BTW, I 100% agree that we should be able to use PC-DMIS "offline" on the computer connected to the CMM with the controller turned off.

    Taking the dongle from one computer to another - I can kinda see that, but I also understand why they don't want you doing that.
Reply
  • Brian, you should be able to continue using pcdmis offline if a machine error occurs.
    That way you can save any work you have done without being able to use the cmm directly.
    Is it possible to have pcdmis switch to the offline interface if the cmm hardware kicks out an error message?


    You can save your work when such a machine error occurs. It's not 100% foolproof, but you can.

    When the error comes up for whatever that requires you to shut down pc-dmis it gives you two options "OK" and "Shutdown" correct? If you click "OK" it pops back up immediately right? Well, not quite - at least not as far as the computer is concerned. If you use your left hand to hold the ctrl key and hit s repeatedly and use your right hand to click on "OK", you can get it to save. You have to go through the error window several times sometimes, but it will save (sometimes). After you think it has saved click on "shutdown". Hopefully it worked.

    Give it a try. Open a program, insert a move point at the end, don't save it, hit the e-stop. You'll get the error message. Do the above steps, shutdown PC-DMIS, restart it, open your program and see if the move point is there.

    BTW, I 100% agree that we should be able to use PC-DMIS "offline" on the computer connected to the CMM with the controller turned off.

    Taking the dongle from one computer to another - I can kinda see that, but I also understand why they don't want you doing that.
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