Hello all,

I am working on a cnc router that is being placed into a factory production role, and as such, I am trying to make it as "idiot proof" as possible...

I currently have a "pick your part" screen, where the user chooses what part they want to cut from a series of photos, it loads the GCode, takes them back to the program run screen, and then they hit "go"...

I have placed a ticker in the 4th axis DRO, that changes based on what has been selected, but I was wondering if there was a way to have a "hot swappable" image on the screen...

Basically, if the user has chosen part X, I would like to call up a picture of part X on the main screen, as a verification, but if they choose part Y, or part Z, the picture of those parts would be shown instead.

I was thinking of placing LED's underneath a picture, and in my button script, setting the LED, then referencing the LED state from within the picture.. but... not seeing how i can do that.

Any insight/thoughts would be great. ( oh yeah, this is using Screen4 as my designer, making basic screens)

Thanks again!

-Nate

Nate,
Great idea with the image and using UserLed's.

Along with what you have on your button and with the UserLED number your using do:

'Part X on the button

Call SetUserLed(1101,1)
Call SetUserLed(1102,0)
Call SetUserLed(1103,0)

'Part Y on the button

Call SetUserLed(1101,0)
Call SetUserLed(1102,1)
Call SetUserLed(1103,0)

'Part Z on the button

Call SetUserLed(1101,0)
Call SetUserLed(1102,0)
Call SetUserLed(1103,1)




So you would have a blank image(or a color of the background) and the image of the Partx,Y,Z next to eachother (two state image LED).
When the user makes a selection have all the UserLED's go to OFF(0) and the one selected to UserLED got to ON(1).

If you haven't worked with two state Image LED's,Benny has a tutorial.

Hope I understood right what you wanted 

I'm going to add to this cause I think it's a good idea.

If you create a "Image LED" and in the "OFF" state have a blank image and in the "On" state have the image that you want.
And call to turn them "ON/OFF" with the above code on the three buttons.

You can also more easly do this in a Flash screen 

You could also have the 'Off' state image be transparent at a percentage that would make the image look sort of grayed or whited out and the 'On' state be sharp and clear.

A even Cheaper/easier way.......hehehe

Would be, to copy and paste your screen that has you button selections onto 3 other screens. From the main screen, when the user hits the wanted piece, it also flips to an Identical copy of the screen, (on another page), and on that page your Image is nice and pretty, and the others are Grayed out.........
Thus the main screen, all buttons are grayed out, but when selecting, it flips to the identicle screen layout, (just on another page), and the selected picture is there.

Scott

Wow,

lots of help coming in, i really appreciate it!

I will look into the "image LEDs"... i think the only complication I will have, is that i have 13 different parts that can/will be cut by my operators...  that could be a substantial bit of work..

Zealous,
the way I'm reading what you are saying, is that I would have a button, with the image LED on it (with the various states possible).. and then upon pressing the button to obtain the desired part, the image would change, based upon the Image LED state (ish..)
Where I'm using a separate page to select the parts, I am a little confused on how that would work...   Although, I could make a new "cycle start" button, which uses the Image LED as a picture, and then also starts the process.... hhmmm.. something to think about...

Poppabear,
I do agree that it would be much easier/cheaper way to have a new "program run" page for each part I was going to cut...  I just hesitate to do that, from a maintenance standpoint.  If i was ever in there, mucking about with stuff and making changes/updating, it would be really easy to forget to make a change on 1 screen...   Although, this is a very valid option, I appreciate you bringing it up, and I may just go with it for a convenience standpoint!

Thank you all for your input, and if others have things to say, I would still love to hear it!

-Nate

ok, i have been mulling Zealous' suggestion around in my head, and i think i understand more now...   basically the "on" state for each LED (a separate one would be created for every part that could be selected), would have the picture of the part that it represents, while the "off" state would just be transparent.  I would then take all 13 part LEDs, and "stack" them on top of one another, while putting the LED activation code in the buttons I am pressing on my selection page.  Upon selecting "part X", the LED that was associated with "part X" would go to it's "on" state, showing a picture of that part, while the LEDs associated with parts Y and Z would go to their "off" states, and become transparent, negating the problem of multiple layers!

I'm going to play with this, and see how it turns out   I'll post up my results & thoughts & such as i go through it to assist anyone that may come after me with a similar problem/idea.

Thanks again for the help guys!

Nate,
It would be nice if a LED could have more than two states in Screen desighner.

Now in a Flash screen you can have an infinite number of states for a LED, you could also have a small anamation of what the machine will do if they press a button,or include a video of how to operate the interface/machine  you could also provide "hints" when the mouse is over a button.... Let me know if you have any problems and I can post an example Flash or regular Mach for the image LED's screen.

BOOM!  it's done...

i just finished running it, and aside from little clean-ups that I have to do (@ machine shutdown, kill the LEDs that were active, etc)... works great.
I just layered all of the LEDs on top of each other on my main screen, made the off-state transparent, the On-state with a picture of the part.

So, it works great, and possibly more importantly, impresses the higher-ups too

Thanks again for the assistance all!

-Nate