22-year-old CNC controller connected to MES in real time.
CNC Manufacturing Plant
Protocol Reverse Engineering · RS-232 · Node.js Bridge · MQTT
The Situation
A production facility with a 22-year-old CNC milling system upgraded their MES (Manufacturing Execution System) to a modern platform. The old CNC could no longer communicate. New machine quote: €480,000. Production upgrade: 12-month delivery time.
The Challenge: A Silent Protocol
The CNC machine used a proprietary RS-232 protocol with no documentation. The manufacturer had gone out of business. Neither the protocol specification nor the source code of the control software was available.
Phase 1: Passive Protocol Analysis
We connected a Y-cable on the RS-232 line and recorded the full traffic over 72 hours of real production. Goal: understand the protocol without touching the machine.
Phase 2: Custom Protocol Bridge
With the fully documented protocol we developed a Node.js bridge that translates between the CNC protocol and MQTT. The bridge runs on a Raspberry Pi 4 directly at the machine — no changes to the CNC hardware required.
CNC Machine
RS-232
Protocol Bridge
Node.js
MES Platform
MQTT/REST
Result
Kosteneinsparung
Direktvergleich
New CNC machine (vendor quote)
€480,000
Solvetronix
€118,000
Sie sparen
€362,000
Einsparung
75%
ROI typisch: < 6 months