Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: JonnyElectronny on July 12, 2008, 10:24:36 PM
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I am building a robotic arm and had planned to use mach3 to control its movements.
But what I really would like, is to use a Mach3 with a joystick.
There is a joystick control that comes with Mach3, but it is limited to X and Y movements only.
The key controlls work great, but don't have speed controls, like a joystick.
So....
Does anyone know whrere I can find a joystick plug-in for Mach3 that has more then just X and Y controls?
Any help would be great.
JonnnyElectronny
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Speaking off the top of my head - because I have no idea - but if you can control X and Y axis, why can't you change the program and control say Z and A axis.
The control for all axis are identical - therefore it is just a case of pointing then at the right axis - OK so you will need two joysticks ( or a selector switch) but you are after the extra controls anyway.
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What I would like is to have 6 controls from either one or two joysticks, X, Y, Z, A, B, C.
But they have to work at basically the same time wtihout a selector switch.
I have an AxidPad joystick that has two analog joystick pots, 8 bottons, and a digital thumb pad.
Perfect for controlling the arm. Just need a way of interfacing it with Mach3.
My regular keyboard works perfect, except for it is an either on or off state.
The joystick gives you speed control, which is perfect for slow arm adjustments.
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Looking at it, I don't think you can use analogue joysticks on Mach 3. The jog controls are not alterable for speed - they are on or off, so will only react to an on/off joystick.
You can alter jogging speed but it is a seperate function.
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Jonny, this thread may help.
http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,1391.0.html
Brett
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You could bring it into a brian, trough arturos modbus board with analog inputs, and then through a brain, BUT, the jog speed overide at least at the application scale is a global for all six axis, thus you couldnt move X at 40% and Y at 60% at the same time.
I am working on a 6 axis plugin right now in that you can jog all six axis at once, I have one Analog Jog speed overide input, but if you tell me how many you need (i.e. Six?), I could add them to the plug in dialog. Since in a plug in you can talk to the axis perameters individually, you could have different jog speeds I think.
When I get closer to done, with it, I will test with Aurtors boards to see if each axis can indeed do independant speeds........it should be do-able since jog speed is a independant variable for each axis.
THEN AGAIN.........What Brett said may be easier on you, if that key grabber can some how have 2 or more axis jogging at different rates of speed.
scott