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Messages - washcomp

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1
Feature Requests / Keyboard translator
« on: May 12, 2008, 08:43:39 AM »
In my case, I use a keyboard emulator to interface my control panel to MACH.  In order to convert some of the keystrokes to MACH friendly versions (so I don't have to substantially modify the standard screen sets), I use Les Newell's "Keygrabber" utility.  It would be helpful to have a "front end" translator built into MACH to accomplish the same function without the use of an external utility.  Just a coulpe of columns of "if MACH receives this stroke -> interpet as that stroke" to allow the ASCII character set to be used based on whatever gadget is creating keystrokes.

Regards,
Jeff



2
I just dusted off my mill after a couple of years, downloaded the latest MACH3 and started to test to make sure everything was OK.  I have an MPG pendent that I built which has two rotary switches. These go into a keyboard emulator (IPAC) then into KeyGrabber (utility software) to pass the appropriate keystrokes to MACH3.  I modified the 1024 standard screen set as follows:

Note:  I'm set to Imperial units

MPG X axis    <ALT X>    OEM Code 259
MPG Y axis    <ALT Y>    OEM Code 260
MPG Z axis    <ALT Z>    OEM Code 261
MPG OFF       <ALT T>    OEM Code 276 (Which I use to turn MPG on/off)

All of the above work, so the scheme is fine
Now the problem is with the rosolution:
.01           <ALT U>    OEM Code 267
.001          <ALT V>    OEM Code 268
.0001         <ALT W>    OEM Code 269

The above values were taken from the standard settings (or at least how I interpeted them) from MACH3 default configuration.

The MPG is calibrated to 4 clicks per detent

The problem:
Regardless of the setting I choose for the resolution, I seem to get about .0014" movement of an axis for each click of the MPG.  I also have a joystick set up and I get the same result from the joystick on step mode (actually, the joystick sometimes steps and sometime not, the MPG always steps.  When the joystick does step it's the same about .0014".

I have not been auditing the group for a while, so if this was addressed before, I appologize.

Any ideas about what's going on and how to fix the problem would be appreciated.

Jeff

3
General Mach Discussion / Re: Keygrabber Axis Gain question
« on: October 02, 2006, 08:20:54 PM »
Chris,

Never mind the IPAC (I must have been tired when I wrote the response.  The IPAC is a keyboard emulator that I use and interface to Keygrabber, but has nothing to do with your application :-) )

Assuming you have a reasonably fast PC, if no one else experiences a delay, but you do, and assuming that the application is set up the same, then the problem is likely to be similar to one of the things I mentioned. 

The only other thing that comes to mind is some sort of an interupt issue.  Take a look at start/control panel (may have to hit "settings" to find it)/System/device manager (may have to hit "hardware" to get here).  See if you have any items or drivers with exclamation marks or red "X"'s.  If so, you should correct the issue and problem may go away.

Jeff

4
Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: ModIO Yaskawa Pendant Project.
« on: October 01, 2006, 09:52:28 PM »
I have one.

Regards,
Jeff :-)

5
General Mach Discussion / Re: Keygrabber Axis Gain question
« on: September 29, 2006, 12:34:02 PM »
If you have a time delay with Keygrabber (I don't and I have not heard of anyone else who has), I would take a look at the services and software packages that you have loaded at system startup.  There may be a non-related conflict between two packages (two anti-virus packages at the same time as an example) which are fighting for control or some other abnormal things that are loaded.  Another possibility is that you may find that you have some "malware" which intercepts ksystrokes which has become resident on your system.  This is not a good thing (from a security standpoint), but can generally be removed with the better anti-spyware programs (you might run more than one in indevidual scans and then choose one to keep resident with periodic scans from the others).  Free ones include Microsoft Defender (download from www.microsoft.com) and Spybot Search & Destroy (available from http://www.safer-networking.org/).  Good commercial ones are available from Webroot (Spysweeper at www.webroot.com) and the Kaspersky Labs anti-virus package I think adresses them as well.

From everything I've seen, your slowdown problem is not related to the IPAC or Keygrabber and I encourage you to eliminate any software conflicts or unwanted security risks as a slow response time on your gamepad may be the least of your eventual problems.

Hope this helps,
Jeff

6
General Mach Discussion / Re: Keygrabber Axis Gain question
« on: September 27, 2006, 07:46:03 AM »
I'm still not sure what you are trying to do, so I'll answer a bit generically.

The Keygrabber software translates from the button you are using into the virtual keystroke that you select to match it.  Each time you press the button, the matched keystroke is sent to MACH.  You can check your work by using the keyboard to send the same keystrokes.  If it works from the keyboard, then the issue lies with either the setup or the capabilities of Keygrabber.  If MACH still doesn't behave the way you expect when you are sending the keystrokes directly from the keyboard, then it's either a setup problem (maybe a typo in the screen setup on the MPG assigning the keystroke or some incompatibility with the specific character key you've chosen) or you are trying to make MACH do something that Art has not written in (it's always his fault anyway :-) ), or a confusion on your part about how the specific function is designed to work.

I know this isn't the specific answer, but it's the best I can do since I don't really understand what you are trying to accomplish.  At least it gives you a way (hopefully) to troubleshoot the problem.  If you can go into some detail of step-by-stem what you would like the tool to do and what specific steps you are taking to try this procedure, I think it may clear some of the fogs of confusion away for Brian, Art, myself and others.

Hope this helps a bit.
Jeff

7
General Mach Discussion / Re: Keygrabber Axis Gain question
« on: September 26, 2006, 10:03:14 PM »
I'm gonna take a stap that you are referring to feed override?  Sort of a way to increase or decrease your axis feed rate from what you have defined as standard.  Take a look at what the screen set is using for + and - feed override and try assigningthose keystrokes to your HID with Keygrabber.  If I've guessed wrong, please let me know.

Regards,
Jeff

8
Mach Screens / Re: NEED BETTER MACH 2 MILL SCREEN
« on: July 19, 2006, 09:04:20 AM »
You might want to look over the ones in the "Works in Progress" catagory at the top of the Mach Screen forum page.  A number of them are pretty complete and you might like one of them.

Regards,
Jeff

9
Mach Screens / Re: To the authors of new Screens
« on: July 11, 2006, 09:35:40 PM »
Feel free to post mine as well.

Regards,
Jeff

10
I like the high contrast - makes stuff easy to see.

Keep up the good work,
Jeff

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