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Newbie question about push buttons
« on: December 30, 2015, 10:51:52 PM »
I'm in the process of retrofitting an older cnc lathe called a dyna myte 3000. I've gutted the out of date electronics and am starting fresh. So far I have purchased a c10 bob, gecko 251x drivers and will be reusing the original power supply since it worked fine before. I went ahead and made my own control panel for this machine which includes a power switch, spindle switch, toggle switch for opt stop, a button for cycle start and one for feed hold. I also installed 4 separate buttons which will control the feedrate and spindle rate override up and down.

Wiring anything more than just stepper motors is all new to me. Do I need to make my own script in order to have mach3 communicate with the buttons I installed? or is it as easy as setting up a hotkey
Re: Newbie question about push buttons
« Reply #1 on: January 02, 2016, 05:20:37 AM »
How do you intend to get the buttons wired back to be notice by mach3?

The c10 bob is a parallel port breakout board, so IO's are a bit limited to 5 input pins.  And one of them needs to be an e-stop really.

Your options are...
2nd breakout board
Custom 2nd breakout board ( most parallel port bobs I've been have pins 2-9 as outputs by default but these could be inputs if the bob was made in such a way)
Pokeys u57  set up as a keyboard emulator (don't think the Ethernet Pokeys works as a keyboard emulator given most keyboards are USB or ps2 connection).
Arduino Leonardo or micro setup as a keyboard emulator.
Modbus input board.

All options will require some form of script depending upon what you want the buttons to do.

I'd suggest searching and reading a few other posts on the forum about users wanting custom buttons.

I was trying to help someone with an arduino keyboard emulator before Christmas, but must admit because of some of the key numbers used by mach3 it was proving problematic for me.... But it wasn't really my project as I was just curious but did not actually need a load of buttons.

I would suggest by far the most simple method that is mach3 and mach4 compatible and gives you everything you could want is to buy a Shuttle Contour Pro and less than an hour after it arrives youll be up and running with more buttons than you can shake a stick at.

The other one similar but I've not had good success with is an Xbox controller...

Once you have a Shuttle Pro the rest of the options are not nessesary.
Rob

Albert Einstein ― “If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”
Re: Newbie question about push buttons
« Reply #2 on: January 02, 2016, 06:23:33 AM »
PoKeys USB has a MACH3 plugin, so you can set up, an input matix that triggers doOEMbutton. It can give feedbach with LEDs, control LCD 4x20. MPG etc.
I made my self a rather decent operator panel with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z351UbtLujs
Now the USB version _can_ be setup as keyboad emulation, but in 99% of the cases it's not needed.
Re: Newbie question about push buttons
« Reply #3 on: January 02, 2016, 07:10:23 PM »
Nice operator panel, didn't know it was able to do a key matrix, thanks for the info.  Been playing with an e57, may need to get a u57 if I want to make an operator panel in the future.
Rob

Albert Einstein ― “If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”
Re: Newbie question about push buttons
« Reply #4 on: January 02, 2016, 11:02:32 PM »
PoKeys USB has a MACH3 plugin, so you can set up, an input matix that triggers doOEMbutton. It can give feedbach with LEDs, control LCD 4x20. MPG etc.
I made my self a rather decent operator panel with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z351UbtLujs
Now the USB version _can_ be setup as keyboad emulation, but in 99% of the cases it's not needed.


Very cool looking panel. Kind of embarrassed of mine now haha. That shuttle pro sounds fantastic but being that I've finally finished my panel I might at well go with the pokeys usb instead. Either way though thank you both on your knowledgeable input
Re: Newbie question about push buttons
« Reply #5 on: January 06, 2016, 04:50:56 PM »
FWIW (and probably not much...)

I was going to do a hardware interface, but it got too involved for me so I went the other way.  Bought an ELO touch screen and made my own Mach3 touch screen panel.  Now I can change it any way I like.

I do have a vistacnc hardware pendant for MPG.

Here is my screen.  Once I got started it turned out to be *very* easy to add new buttons.  I shamelessly stole buttons from other developers.

https://donstechnologyblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/06/design-your-own-mach3-screens/

« Last Edit: January 06, 2016, 04:52:48 PM by sixmile »