CNC Monitoring
The CNC Data Monitoring feature is for showing the status of your DNC machining. Using this feature you can show how far the CNC program has got, which tool is current and how many parts you have machined.

Typically, this is ASCII text output through CNC macro functions, for example a Fanuc Macro-B. The preset string of characters output from a CNC control tells ProDNC to go into Monitoring mode.

Commands
On many CNC, including Fanuc, Haas, Mazak etc, you can output text strings, usually created via a macro function, or just static text strings that are output through the CNC's RS232 port. ProDNC can pick these up and show them to the status screen.

A very simple example macro program is shown below

% O9030	Macro programs are normally above O9000
POPEN	This statement opens the Fanuc serial port
DPRNT[MONON]	Output the Monitoring start word
....Rest of Macro...
DPRNT[TOOL 12]	This output is captured and shows "Tool Number 12"
....Rest of Macro...
DPRNT[PART 2]	This output is captured and shows "Part Number 2"
...Rest of Macro...
DPRNT[PERC 25]	This output is captured and shows "25 Percent Done"
...Rest of Macro...
DPRNT[PERC 50]	This output is captured and shows "50 Percent Done"
....More Macro....
DPRNT[MONOFF]	Output the Monitoring end word
PCLOS	Close the Fanuc serial port
M99	End the sub-routine
%

Many macros can gather tool calls, parts counter and many other useful data automatically.

In addition you can capture the data to a logfile. This will be called something like "Fanuc-Capture.log" depending on what you have called your CNC machine. The data is appended so to reset it you need to delete the file.