Hi All
It seems everyone has a different story about recycling computer gear into their projects and I thought someone might find this one interesting. I picked up some ex-restaurant programmable POS keyboards on ebay last week and am trialling one for my cnc mill conversion. The keyboard layout is 16 wide by 8 high with tactile feedback and a polycarbonate overlay. Each key is re-programmable for make and break so a single button press can perform any sort of hot-keying. It's also re-legendable so I'll be able to label the keys for start, run, etc. as required. I've pulled one to pieces and it will be a snap to mount the key matrix and controller behind a panel together with my lcd screen so it hopefully ends up something like the panel on a commercial cnc machine.
The idea is to reprogram the keyboard to perform all the common functions required to drive Mach3 so as not to need a mouse (I'll keep a cordless usb trackball handy just in case!). I'd also like to maximise the screen for display by removing the buttons I don't need from the screen. The problem is how to program a hotkey screen button to respond to the keyboard hotkey sequence without a button being displayed on the screen or using up screen area? I have tried making the buttons very small (like 10 x 10 pixels) so they are not visible but then they are too hard to find later. Is there any way to create a hot key that performs the same function as a button without using an on-screen button?
Any ideas appreciated.
Kind Regards
Ian
Brisbane, Australia