15 years ago I would love to have had a product like this when working mechanical maintenance in a machine shop but Jesus Christ the price alone is ridiculous. $360!?! some shops have
hundreds of machines.
Back when I was in mechanical maintenance, we would wire up every machine on the floor (lathe, shave, heat treat, cymbal cutters, you name it) to Serial Comm adapters that convert the RS232 from most machines into IP/CAT5. These only cost $80USD, and were bullet-proof enough to replace when needed. The CAT5 lines were shielded so they were robot friendly, and went all the way to the front office where the Linux administrator had them all wired into switch panels and network servers for the guys in the QC labs.
Besides, most newer CNC come with remote desktop or SSH or something remote you can use to poll them or interact with them by default. Sometimes they even come with wifi antennas.
I guess if you were building a new robot or machine, and needed a logic interface, this would be an excellent solution to a proprietary world, but as a bolt-on accessory no.
Back when I was in mechanical maintenance, we would wire up every machine on the floor (lathe, shave, heat treat, cymbal cutters, you name it) to Serial Comm adapters that convert the RS232 from most machines into IP/CAT5. These only cost $80USD, and were bullet-proof enough to replace when needed. The CAT5 lines were shielded so they were robot friendly, and went all the way to the front office where the Linux administrator had them all wired into switch panels and network servers for the guys in the QC labs.
Besides, most newer CNC come with remote desktop or SSH or something remote you can use to poll them or interact with them by default. Sometimes they even come with wifi antennas.
I guess if you were building a new robot or machine, and needed a logic interface, this would be an excellent solution to a proprietary world, but as a bolt-on accessory no.