PathPilot External Communication Capabilities

PathPilot
1

Hi everyone,

I’m new to the forum, and as a company, we’re considering purchasing the PCNC 440 for R&D purposes.

I’ve been searching through the documentation, but I couldn’t find any detailed information on how PathPilot handles external communication.

I understand that PathPilot allows external systems to interact with the CNC, but I’d like to know more about the data exchange capabilities.

Specifically:

  • Is there any API or interface to extract real-time machine data (like spindle speed, current position coordinates, or active G-code line)?
  • Are there any supported communication protocols like MTConnect or OPC UA?
  • If not, does PathPilot expose any kind of socket, REST API, or other hooks to get machine status information externally?

Any pointers or examples would be highly appreciated.

Thank you for your time!
Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,
Ilker

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To my knowledge, there are no available interfaces other than a connection to pathpilot hub and the ability to map the machine’s storage as a network drive for file transfers, neither of which would allow for any kind of realtime status monitoring. There are some examples of text messages being sent from the gcode (here’s one) but that’s the extent of what I’ve seen.
However, pathpilot is fairly open and is written in python so in theory, someone with good programming skills could modify it to enable the kind of communications you’re after. Be aware though, that any changes you make will not persist after an update. The good news is you are never required to update PP so if you make it work and are happy to miss out on whatever new features are included in an update, you can stick with the version you’re currently running.
All of that said, if you’re just wanting a way to remotely monitor the machine’s state, the easiest solution is probably to use a video splitter and run a second monitor wherever you need to watch the machine from. If distance is an issue, a video over ethernet adapter could be added as well.

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Hi Ian,

Thank you for your kind reply.

We have a software that supervises milling process in detail and it requires constant update of machine data. With your suggestion, I belive it is worth looking into on how such modifications can be made.

If I don’t get any more answers, I will mark your reply as the solution.

Many thanks again!
Ilker

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I would look into halmeter, halcmd and halscope, all part of LinuxCNC that is at the core of PathPilot. those have python interfaces available as well.

gerrit

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