Ray yes that would work, think you could also use encoder inputs as well.
Hood

What about getting a cheap USB Joystick ripping out the guts and using keygrabber, You'll have 2 analogue inputs with either slider or potentiometer (older ones) controls.

Haven't tried it, just an idea.

John

Hi Hood,
You mentioned that you could do the feedrate override with an encoder, Could you elaborate a bit? It seems like you might be able to just use the encoder pulse to move the feed override up/down but I am not sure how you would set that up.

Any help appreciated,
Thanks,
Cutmore

Cutmore,
 I actually said I think
 The way you said is what I ws thinking, set up the A as an input or oem trigger and the B up as another. You could then make a Brain to look at these inputs and do a Up or Down button press. Whether it will work I dont know as I have never tried, possibly the pulse from the encoder will be too short to be seen properly.

Hood

Cutmore,
 I actually said I think
 The way you said is what I ws thinking, set up the A as an input or oem trigger and the B up as another. You could then make a Brain to look at these inputs and do a Up or Down button press. Whether it will work I dont know as I have never tried, possibly the pulse from the encoder will be too short to be seen properly.

Hood

The service rate on brains is rather slow (4-10 times per second, IIRC), so I think this would be very unreliable, unless you turned it very slowly....  And with quadrature, if you miss a transition, the next one can be interpreted as a move in the opposite direction.

Regards,
Ray L.

I thought Brains were faster than that (mine excepted) but in any case I have tried it. It does work but is not that great. This is probably due to the reason you have said but could partly be due to the Pokeys plugin delay as that was how I had it connected. I am wondering if the MPG counting could be used in Brains for this or even writing a macropump, although macropumps are definitely slower as I think they are around the 4Hz.
 I see in the customisation manual it mentions encoders and keyboard emulators for FRO and SRO so thats another avenue to look down.
Hood

Hi Guys,
Thanks for the replies,
I was thinking more of just hooking the encoder right up to the breakout board. I have an MPG already hooked up.

Have you guys seen  the I mach pendant from vistacnc? That can change the feed over ride, the spindle speed, and act as an mpg.
The video is here
http://www.vistacnc.com/iMach3_pendant_rate_v/iMach3_pendant_rate.html

I want to set up a fixed control panel for my lathe. On the panel I want a feed override, spindle speed override, axis selector for the mpg, and the mpg. after reading about the Mach3 oem codes, I think I can do that without brains or scripts, but I have been known to be wrong before!

Regards,
Cutmore

I have just tried using the PoKeys and the MPG, I used the Pokeys as a keystroke emulator and asigned the MPG to FRO up/down. It works well, maybe not as good as a pot would but it still only took 2 seconds to wind from 1% to 300%
Hood

Hi guys
the vista cnc pendant looks great. has anyone used one.
I tried to get the Homann one but they are out of stock (more expensive)

Dave