Centroid Community CNC Support Forum

About 3 weeks ago, I helped a very good friend upgrade a Pro Light mill will an allin1dc board. The mill and allin1dc thus so far work as advertised.

last night he contacted me saying he was getting alarm code 549.

This came right from the centroid alarm index.

Centroid Alarm 549 Line too long

Cause & Effect
A line in a G/M-code program is too long (more than 1023 characters).

Action
Shorten the line.

He is using a standard Fanuc post processor for his cam and has had successful runs since the conversion. His programs can tend to be long (500K lines or longer). The one he was having trouble with was about 130K lines long. He said error would sometimes happen while loading or it may not happen at all. Im 600 miles from him so its kinda hard to do remote tech support some times.

After reviewing the program, I noticed the line numbers (N1,N2, etc) would count up to N9999 and then recycle back to N1. In this particular program, it recycled 12 times. My theory is perhaps the cnc 12 computer is collectively counting the characters for a line number set. I still don't think there are enough characters in 10 lines to make the 1023 max. Perhaps the computer is just getting confused.

I think this boils down to a post processor issue. I asked him if he could try expanding the number range on the cam software post processor to prevent line repeating or eliminate them all together. Unfortunately he is not savvy enough to make post processor adjustments. I was able to renumber the program with out any N lines repeating. I also made a copy without any N lines. I have sent them back to him and we will see what happens.

I loaded all three files (the one he sent me, the one I renumbered, and the one I omitted the N numbers) into my cnc 12 computer without getting a 549 alarm. I'm running cnc lathe pro for an acorn. Of course I could not really test or run anything since it is a mill program with applicable mill g codes and Y axis moves.

I have also noticed that an intercon program only generates a N line at the start of a new operation. All lines contained within the operation do not have a N line number. Are N lines really needed? I know it can make finding a line much easier. It also takes up a little more space on the file size.

Thoughts, suggestions, comments?

N numbers are not required.

If they are included, and if "fast branching" is enabled (Parameter 145 is 1), then there should not be duplicates.

With very long programs, and no "GOTO" statements, you should turn "fast branching" off: set Parameter 145 to 0.

If he still has the problem even after setting Parameter 145 to zero, then you need to get a copy of the G code file and look at it.

If "549 line too long" means what it says, then the issue is not the number of lines in the file; it is the length of a particular line. It does seem unlikely that a typical Fanuc milling post, in the absence of a malfunction, would post a line exceeding 1023 characters. But it is possible that there is a glitch in the CAM software or postprocessor that causes it to post something nonsensical.

One other thing to consider is if there was an Apple computer involved anywhere in the file transfer process to the machine. Centroid/Win10 expects CR/LF at the line ends. Macs use only the CR, and Windows interprets files like this as one long single line.

Could the controller computer somehow combine all the characters with the same line number and interpret them as one string for the purposes of throwing up the 549 alarm?

benscale160 wrote:Could the controller computer somehow combine all the characters with the same line number and interpret them as one string for the purposes of throwing up the 549 alarm?

No.

How about posting the program in question....