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Author Topic: Xhc HB04 MPG Pendent with Mach4  (Read 78662 times)

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Xhc HB04 MPG Pendent with Mach4
« on: November 21, 2015, 11:33:42 PM »
hello.
First off a shout out to ArtSoft. Thanks for such a great product! I purchased Mach4 almost 6 months ago for my home shop & I have absolutely no complaints so far. compared to what I have to use at work, it is a real joy to use  ;D
 I received a Xhc HB04 Pendent as a birthday present ago and am trying to set this up with my rig.
 Unfortunately it seems to only work with Mach3 and a google/bing/yahoo search brings up nothing for this controller in the way of Mach4. I have seen a few older posts in this forum about using it with Mach3 so I know there are others out there using this device.

Has anyone else tried using this MPG with mach4? and if so were you able to get it to work?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Cheers!
Re: Xhc HB04 MPG Pendent with Mach4
« Reply #1 on: April 19, 2016, 05:29:08 PM »
Hi,
I would like to know the answer to this too.
Anyone know if there are plans for the XHC pendant to support MACH4.

Craig
Re: Xhc HB04 MPG Pendent with Mach4
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2016, 12:19:39 AM »
So after not hearing or finding anything, I took it upon myself to dust off my programming skills and take a crack at writing drivers for this myself. I was successful writing an actual driver for windows, I can read all the button events and read the mpg wheel events as well as write all fields to the screen. However, I slammed into a brick wall trying to write it into a plugin for mach4. After weeks of frustration, I gave up for a while and hung the pendant on the wall of shame. I do revisit the project when work hits a lul and chissle away at it until work picks up again.  The main issue for me is after signing an NDA with newfangled, the "example" they give with the SDK is far from simple and involves stuff that is a bit over my head. Most unfortunately because of the NDA, I cannot really ask for help from the CS experts that I know. So, doing my best to remain honorable to the NDA, I have to relearn everything I thought I knew about plugins...

again, if anyone has a working solution for this already, please tell me before I end up re-inventing the wheel, otherwise, I'll get it working eventually and will post it here when I do.

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Re: Xhc HB04 MPG Pendent with Mach4
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2016, 01:44:38 AM »
Hi mkullman,

Try posting a question in the Mach4 section of the forum (http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/board,94.0.html).
It's quite possible that someone there may have some key information to get you started again.

Tweakie.
PEACE
Re: Xhc HB04 MPG Pendent with Mach4
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2016, 08:12:35 PM »
I actually made some progress last night (more like this morning). I finally got the example code to compile and load. Turns out it had some visual studio configuration issues. <facepalm> Now that I have that working, I have to flesh it out the example down to a skeleton and add in the driver portion.
Re: Xhc HB04 MPG Pendent with Mach4
« Reply #5 on: October 13, 2016, 09:14:19 PM »
Hello, Mr mkullman,

This is Alex He from ChengDu XinHeCheng Technology Co.,Ltd. Only manufacturer for HB04.

I am sorry that our WHB04-L only support Mach3. And we just developed our mach4 card. For handwheel still under developing.

If there is any update, i will let you know

Do you wanna test our mach4 card?
Re: Xhc HB04 MPG Pendent with Mach4
« Reply #6 on: October 13, 2016, 10:49:39 PM »
Alex, thanks for the info. I understand, it's totally not your fault. The product listing clearly stated that it was for Mach3.   You do have my attention regarding development of a mach4 card and handwheel, and Yes! I would be very interested in testing it.  
 
to update anyone else following this thread:
  I have made significant strides with developing a plugin for mach4. I almost have a working framework, but have had to take long breaks for family & work. I'm getting there slowly but surely. Overall I don't regret having to write a plugin myself, it has been very educational and I now have a deeper appreciation for those that do this stuff for a living.
Re: Xhc HB04 MPG Pendent with Mach4
« Reply #7 on: October 13, 2016, 10:53:33 PM »
Hello, Mr Mkullman,

Thank you for fast reply.

Can you send me your email ? Then i can show you our mach4 card and speficication.

Thanks
Re: Xhc HB04 MPG Pendent with Mach4
« Reply #8 on: January 16, 2017, 11:55:31 PM »
Okay, I finally dived back into this after a long break.
I was plugging away at this back in September when my wife's water broke & it has taken me a while to work up the courage to pick up the pieces of my train of thought (just a locomotive and a caboose at this point).
The past week I have made a lot of progress & have something somewhat functional.
It's ugly, but it works. I can read all the needed data and display it on the Pendent. The MPG wheel works for XY&Z axis, FRO% & Spindle speed . and I have mapped a few buttons to do the basic functions I want (Estop, Start, Stop, pause, resume, zero axis, goto zero, increase MPG step amount, and regenerate toolpath)
The ugly is that the driver is unsigned and will require a few extra steps if it is to be installed on win10, I have zero interest in jumping through the hoops to be able to sign windows drivers so this will not be fixed. Also, there is an odd library dependency I'm currently trying to chase down, which can be worked around by installing Visual Studio with the Visual C++ windows SDK on the target pc.

I'm currently using this pendant on my machine and will gladly share the driver and compiled plug-in with anyone that asks for it and is willing to go through a few extra steps to install it.
message me for more info.

if you want the source, you will have to ask ArtSoft to broker an exchange as I signed an NDA with them and cannot share the code directly.
Re: Xhc HB04 MPG Pendent with Mach4
« Reply #9 on: January 17, 2017, 12:05:02 AM »
Hello, Mr Mkullman,

Can i know what kind of Pendant are you using now?