Biesse Rover B2.30 LinuxCNC

Hello community, I am new to the forum, so I do not know if I am in the correct section to post my question.

I have recently purchased a 2003 Biesse Rover B2.30 that has the CNI P600 driver (P602C and P601C), and I don't know if there is any way to make it work with LinuxCNC, I have not found information about it and I want to change it because it has Windows XP Service Pack 1 is a bit outdated and doesn't work really well.

Is there a way to get this driver to work with LinuxCNC?

I put Images of the controller.

The PC is DELL with 256MB RAM and a 2002-2003 Intel Pentium IV provided by Biesse.

If there is any more information that you need, do not hesitate to comment and I will provide it.

Thanks a lot!

I have done quite a few Biesse machines and I have two in my shop running linuxcnc.

That comnputer with those cards in it is the equivelant to a pc running linux with linuxcnc installed with either mesa boards or pico boards.

If you want to retrofit, you will need either a newer pc or use that one and install linux, then linuixcnc, figure out whether you want mesa or pico boards.

First you need to see how compatible your machine is. The newer Biesse's are a bit harder because they have alot of rs485 and proprietory protocols. So which drives you have in the cabinet and what the relay boards are what we need to know to help you with a retrofit. So post up some pics of the drivers and relays showing model numbers and we can help. Or post a pdf of your machine schematics. I love wortking on Biesse machines but have never touched a Rover B.

We have the exact machine with us . Biesse Rover B 2.3.
Purchased in 2007.
It had been giving trouble like a multiple organ failure.
1. PC started shutting down as and when it pleased.  
2. Communication with machine stopped.
3. Homing stopped and machine went in COMA.

After many followups with Biesse india team, the only solution they came up with was to replace the PC, cards, Softwares, Windows etc- everything. on a charge of whooping 8000 Euros.
We being a very small company could not afford this arm twisting.
After a lot of research and banging heads on 100's of doors, finally took the matters in our own hands.
1. First step, we replaced the SMPS of HP PC which came along with the machine with an old SMPS from a junked PC in scrap market. We tried about 13 of them and found 4 of them giving proper calibrated current to HP motherboard.
2. Second Step :  we cloned the original hard disk on to 4 different disks and run the chkdsk and scandisks to free them of any errors.
3. Third Step : with no support from Biesse (for obvious greedy reasons) we started checking the documantation available for P610cand P602C cards in tandem with Yaskawa Drives. Finally we found that the communication IC for USB had a minor fault. We changed that component and brought the hardware near to its pristine condition.
4. Now the machine started communicating and the homing was also performed successfully.
5. 4th step :  we tried cloned disks one after another and finally one of them behaved properly and the program ran succesfully.
After 3 months of drifting helpless, we could save ourselves on our own without any knowledge of CNC stuff...
Now we are working on creating another PC, looking to buy another set of P601C and P602C cards from any salvaged machines from anywhere on the planet.
This is a must for us to keep our machine running for another 10 years because we know for sure, Biesse would not help at all.
Lesson learnt - Self Reliance is the key. You ride the horse when you know how to tame it to a large extent.
Now I am very excited to learn from this post that there may be a solution to run the machine in Linux environment also...
I will share any knowledge I gain in this process here- very soon.







 

 We,a small construction company, are in the exact same situation. We have a Rover 24 L CNC, connected to a HP Compaq terminal. This terminal still runs Windows XP and was purchased with the machine. I have disconnected it from the network so no worries there. But my biggest concern is this terminal failing.

So i've purchased an exact same pc and interface card as a backup. It looks very much like the pictures in this topic, P602C and P601C. However, even though i kept everything exactly the same (bios settings, irq/dma, dip switches, hard disk image, etc.), the software refuses to talk to the interface card. Is there some kind of flashing that needs to be done on the card? Hope you can share your experience!

 

I just ran into this very Controller Card:

YASKWA BIESSE HSD CNI P601C H0501D601C + P602C

I thought to make a few comments on your post 5 years later.

This card is on the original PCI Architecture (ie. Not PCI Express) which means that the best computers to use for these are the newest that run the correct PCI voltage, which is the DELL GX520 and the DELL GX620. After that, it seems the voltage changes somewhat in the post 2007 computers.

I have done a fresh install of Windows XPSP1, and BIESSE 2.2 with the SP2 patch

I have slapped on 4GB (3GBmax for win x32) and at some point going to source an IDE SSD drive to speed things up.

I think you will find that XP32SP1 is actually very stable.

There are a few fringe PCI to PCI express converters out there, in order to be able to use newer tech (Virtualisation maybe?) but I am a bit worried that I FRY the YASAKAWA board.

I think in about another 5 years, someone is going to be on here looking for a solution since these 2006 computers are getting a touch harder to find,