Topics

1

General Mach Discussion / Need Digital Thermometer Support

« on: January 13, 2012, 04:49:48 PM »

Hey, I'm knew to all this.  I have a Mach3-controlled CNC machine and it would be good to added three digital thermometers to the milling equipment and somehow connect them so that Mach3 can show the three temperature values during the run.  Ultimately, it might be good to programmatically do something if the temperature crosses some threshhold but for right now I think I'd be satisfied with seeing those values on the Mach3 screen.

This sounds like a plug-in for Mach3... plus... something in the way of a controller.  Although I'm pretty good at hobbies and projects, I'd much prefer a canned product that I don't have to program to.

Has anyone done anything like this yet?  Is anyone using a good digital temperature probe in their project?  Thanks in advance

2

General Mach Discussion / Video Montoring With Sound

« on: January 13, 2012, 04:41:03 PM »

Hi.  I started by researching here and I don't think anyone has asked about this before.  I've seen the threads where people are monitoring with a camera attached somewhere to their equipment.  I've seen where people are using cameras both for positioning and for imaging the stock or copying something.  I've got a CNC machine that's in the manufacturing space but I'd like to monitor it via remote control software over the ethernet.  I've already added a remote control program (VNC), it allows me to see the Mach3 screen and that's working fine... but I'd like to take this one step further...

I'm envisioning putting something like a webchat camera with a microphone on the equipment and monitoring it remotely.  I'm not sure if I should be looking for spy cameras, say, with wi-fi or a direct ethernet connection... or if I'm looking for something that would run on the same computer as Mach3 and behave, essentially, like a webcam client like Skype.
Scenario 1:  I'd turn on the remote spy camera so that it's sending the video/audio out, set up the work, go back to my desk somewhere else and monitor the Mach3 screen via VNC and monitor the video/audio of the milling equipment via the remote spy software.
Scenario 2:  I'd hook up a wi-fi camera to the milling equipment, hook up the other half of the hardware to the same PC that's running Mach3 and then monitor that computer via VNC from my desk.  It seems like I wouldn't be able to get the audio portion of this "show".
Alternatives?  Is there a plug-in that would help out here?  To me, the microphone and remote sound capability would be a major plus.