Hi,
from time to time I would run my machine with my then Windows8 Laptop, and it had a touch screen.
The only problem I found was that the Mach4 screen is quite tight and filled with buttons etc, and thus if you were not very careful you could touch the screen and some other function would
execute rather than the one you intended, simply because of that buttons proximity to the button you had intended. In the event I stopped using the touch screen, quite aside from the oily
fingerprints all over the screen.
The issue is that the touch screen is a feature of Windows, it does not really have anything to do with Mach4.
If you were to make your own Mach4 screen with a marked reduction in the number of buttons and widgets it is entirely possible that a touch screen would be very effective. It comes down to better
matching Mach4's screen to the reliable resolution of the the touch screen in use. The last thing you want is to press <feedhold> for instance and <stop> actually execute and therefore
have the machine lose reference as an example.
I also came to realise that it would appear that no industrial control like Fanuc21i or Siemens 840 or any others that I've seen ever have a touch screen. I would have thought that these companies would
be well into any features that might distinguish their product in the market....,.and yet I don't know of any that have a touch screen? Why do you suppose that is? Do they know something that we don't?
Craig
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