I am a relative newcomer here. I have a Series I Boss 3, an old Series II NC (not CNC), a Grizzly X3, and I'm building a purpose built machine to automate a carbon fiber manufacturing process. As of now, I have the Boss 3 converted to Mach 3 and plan to get the Series II and the X3 done too.
For my setup on the Boss 3, I have an Elo 15" touch screen monitor and I want to eliminate the mouse and keyboard altogether.
All the different screensets I have tried have some amount of scrunching and squeezing of the bitmaps to fit the smaller confines of the usable space that's left after Windows puts up its headers and window borders. I prefer not to have this and, along with other desires, I am designing my own screenset. I have started with Gerry's Aqua set and have used much of the graphics as well as modified some for my needs. I don't know the protocol, I don't want to step on anyone's toes or take anyone's work and use it inappropriately. So if I'm violating any rules, please let me know!
I have installed Klaus's MachScreen and plan to use it to do the work. So far I have only cut and pasted (and otherwise edited) the graphics in Paint Shop Pro so nothing works yet. There may even be things I want to do that are not possible....
Anyway, It recently dawned on me that I could share my ideas with this forum. Here is an image of the run-screen. It is still a work-in-progress, but it has most of what I plan to do on this screen.
Since I have a touch screen, I am thinking I may remove the Jog section because it won't be too convenient to be eyeballing the tool/part while trying to reach for the screen. A pendant will preclude the need for that stuff.
Most of my CNC experience is with an old Fanuc 6m control. It was before there was a toolpath display, so I look at the part not the display - so to save space, I omitted the toolpath display on the run screen. The amber buttons across the top left will switch to the different screens. That old Fanuc had a "dry run" switch that ran the program at a rapid speed for testing. I used it all the time and I haven't seen one on any other screens.
Plus, I never plan on using mist coolant, so I don't have a button for it. I left off a lot of things I don't use...
I'll probably remove the MDI line too. Since I want to eliminate the keyboard, I'll need to figure a way to have one on the screen for MDI (so it will probably be changed to a button to open a different screen). I had planned on having the flyout be a keypad, but there are things about that I don't think will work well.
dotScott has a beautiful Settings screen that I want to use parts of also.
This is just the beginning, I can't believe how long it has taken me to just do this screen image.
Since I am getting by with the 1024 screenset, I can still use the mill. It will probably be slow progress on this as I still have to learn to use MachScreen.
Your comments and suggestions are welcome! I may need to ask questions on making this all come together!
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