I use a recoil usb gamepad I picked up at Walmart for $12.00 I think it was. It works great but I don't feel comfortable leaving the machine up for extended periods with it hooked up. Sometimes it will creep in an axis and has cost me a few endmills  .  It has to do with the centering of the axis sticks and a slight temperature change can take them off center.

Brett

Brett,

Using a VB script, wouldn't there be a way to just toggle a gamepad/joystick on and off?

As a qucik fix, possibly just clicking the jog on/off button works for this?

Dave

Yup Dave, that would work. Actually I should assign one of the buttons to be a dead man really. In other words, it could not jog unless the button was being held in. The buttons are generally snap switches and not analog so much less likely to ever show a false signal. I just have not explored the best way to implement this.

Brett

If you unplug usb jojstick while drivers is on and Mach too, mine axis Xand Y just go to negativ(minus) side and hit dead end weard but that is moust likely plugin.