FAQ - Disk requirements

[hughestomm]

Q. THE BOOK SAYS I NEED A DOUBLE-SIDED, DOUBLE -DENSITY DISK FOR A USER DISK. THIS TYPE OF DISK IS HARD TO FIND, BUT DOUBLE-SIDED, HIGH-DENSITY ARE ABUNDANT. WHY CAN'T I USE ONE OF THESE?

A. You can. All you need to do is put a piece of tape over the small square hole that is opposite the lock switch hole. Then format it on the machine like you would a DS, DD disk. You can also format it on any PC for 720k, but it then can't be used as a bootable disk on a floppy drive machine unless you copy the "cond", "offset", and "string" files to it.

[Sodick Applications]

REVISED ANSWER:

2DD disks are now hard to find. Purchase 2HD (high-density) disks and follow the instructions below to create a 2dd disk.
1. Close the "write protect" tab if not already closed.
2. Tape over the other square shaped hole with scotch tape. At this point there should not be any square hole openings in the disk.
3. Put the disk in your windows PC and do the following.
A)Open "My Computer" and right click drive A
B)Select "Format" from the window
C)Push the radio button for full format.
D)Set the format size using the pull down window. It will be defaulted to 1.44Mb, Pull this down and select 720Kb.
E)Press start

4. The disk is now ready for transferring NC programs, but cannot be used to boot up the machine at this point.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
FOR MARK XI, MARK EX AND OLDER CONTROLS

For these controls the NC program must be output with a specific format. Each block of code needs the following symbols " ";

CORRECT EXAMPLE INCORRECT
"G92 X1.234 Y1.2345;" G92 X1.234 Y1.2345