6K Troubleshooting - My Ethernet Is Locking Up

NOTE: Compumotor made enhancements to the 6K Operating System and the Communications Server(com6srvr.exe) to make it more compatible with Ethernet. If you are experiencing problems with the 6K and Ethernet, our first recommendation is to upgrade your 6K Operating System to revsision 5.1(or higher) and upgrade both Motion Planner and the Com6srvr to version 2.4(or higher). Each of these files can be downloaded free from our website. Click here to download the latest files.

To enable network communications in the 6K, connect via serial cable, then send NTADDR, NTMASK, NTFEN2 and RESET in the terminal window. Then use ARP -S to statically map the 6K MAC address to it's IP address:

Static ARP -S procedure

Static mapping eliminates the need for the PC to ARP the 6K controller. All network communication is performed with MAC addresses not IP addresses. But from the users perspective, the user communicates with an IP address. Resolving the MAC address to an IP address is known as ARPing. ARPing can be done automatically (dynamically) by the TCP/IP stack. Alternatively, the user can define the mapping by statically mapping the MAC address to the IP address. Static mapping has the benefit that it can reduce communication overhead.

This procedure describes, by example, how to dynamically map the 6K MAC address to it's IP address and then use the mapping information to set the static mapping.

We need to start a DOS window. First ping the 6K's IP address. By using PING, we are effectively sending an ARP request to the controller and TCP/IP resolves the MAC address to the IP address dynamically. We then use the ARP -A utility to view the mapping. In the example below, we determine that the 6K MAC address in Hex format is 00-90-55-00-00-37. (We could also have entered the TNTMAC command and converted decimal to hex.) Then enter the ARP -S command as illustrated by the example. To confirm success perform another ARP -A.

The ARP -S should be performed prior to starting Motion Planner.

Use the ARP /? option to get help on DOS ARP utility.

Static mapping of the 6K MAC address to the IP address is required for NTFEN2 operation.

The MAC address is unique to a specific 6K.

The ARP -S static mapping lasts until the PC is rebooted.

Once the necessary ARP -S command has been determined, the command can be added to a batch file or added to the Autoexec.bat file. See FAQ "Automating ARP -S".
An example to illustrate the ARP -S configuration:

The following configurations were set on the PC and the 6K

PC IP address 172.20.34.152
PC Net Mask 255.255.0.0
6K IP address 172.20.34.156 (NTADDR)
6K Net Mask 255.255.0.0 (NTMASK)
6K MAC address 0.144.85.0.0.55 (TNTMAC) => 00-90-55-00-00-37 in Hex.

C:\WINDOWS> PING 172.20.34.156

Pinging 172.20.34.156 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 172.20.34.156: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64
Reply from 172.20.34.156: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64
Reply from 172.20.34.156: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 172.20.34.156: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64

C:\WINDOWS> ARP -A

C:\WINDOWS> ARP -S 172.20.34.156 00-90-55-00-00-37 172.20.34.152

C:\WINDOWS> PING 172.20.34.156

Pinging 172.20.34.156 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 172.20.34.156: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64
Reply from 172.20.34.156: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64
Reply from 172.20.34.156: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=64
Reply from 172.20.34.156: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=64

C:\WINDOWS> ARP -A

C:\WINDOWS> ARP -S 172.20.34.156 00-90-55-00-00-37 172.20.34.152