I purchased a powermate before I read the posts of the plug-in being broken. However, since I had the device, I decided it was a good time to get back into programming and also to try my hand at the Mach SDK. I decided to start from scratch with a new plug-in.

I have written a driver for the device using another project as a template that I located on the web. I have the device working in a test app and movement simulated by progress bars using C and I am now ready to move it into a plug-in enviornment.

I have decided to have the following functions:
Pressing the button down with a quick release cycles the axis.
Rotating the knob jogs the selected axis.
Pushing the knob down and rotating adjusts the Jog%.
The LED will pulse at the jog % rate. i.e.- faster if moving faster.

The question I have is what would be the best way to jog the axis based on the knob rotation? Do I read the DRO and save as the start point, take the knob input, add it to the start point and store it as the end point, then jogon until Mach's DRO reaches the value of my end point variable? At this point simple issue a Jogoff? Is there a better way? Let me know.

No one has an opinion? 

I don't have an Opinion, except its great that you did what you did. I have a powermate, and i would be delighted if you posted a way for me to use it again.

Awesome I too have one. I can't wait, was not looking forward to buying a proper MPG.

Any progress on this?

I just purchased one without reading the forum posts also.

I am also a programmer and can give you some help if needed.

Cheers,
Eric Sites

I also have a PowerMate and would like to use it with my CNC router.

The Powermate is an excellent product and I am really surprised that someone has not already written another plugin that works with the latest versions of Mach3. I am also saddened by those who produce solutions, post the results of their brilliance but then refuse to share the details (perhaps they are just telling porkies and don't want to be found out).
I would not know where to start, but for you programmers out there there is quite a lot of info on creating plugins when you start looking  http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,7922.0.html  go on - give it a try but PLEASE, PLEASE share your success with the other members of the forum.

Tweakie.

Ok guys, I was someone who didn't read the forum before purchasing a power mate, so hooked it up and realized the plugin was old.  Difference was, that I'm a programmer, so I downloaded the plugin wizard, and coded a plugin for it.  It's pretty simplistic, but it works.

I requires the .net framework version 3.5 since it was done using the plugin wizard, and if you don't have that or don't install that, then Mach 3 will tell you that your plugin is damaged.  Anyway, here is the dll.

Hope it works well for everyone.  It basically just steps the axis by .001, and I haven't tried it with millimeters, so let me know how well or badly that works.  Clicking it changes axis just like the other broken plugin, but since nothing else on the other plugin worked for me, I don't know what else it did.

I know this is raw, but if people like it, I can probably find time to make it better.

http://www.corvettediy.com/powermate/GriffinPowerMatePluginV5.dll

newmacher,

Thank you for sharing the information and DLL.

Tweakie.

Thanks Tweakie, glad to help. 

One other thing I found while building the Griffin Plugin was that I couldn't build a plugin dll with Visual Studio 2010 Pro and then get it to run under Mach3.  I had both the .net framework version 4, and version 3.5 installed on my test box, and made sure I had compiled the dll as release dll instead of debug, but Mach3 still said it was a defective plugin.  I finally dropped back and built it with studio 2008 Pro, which works fine, and that is why my plugin has  the .net framework 3.5 dependency.

I'm wondering if anyone else has had experience using studio 2010 for plugin development, and might know what I was doing wrong.