15$ wireless jog control.

Brent Dowell

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So, I wanted something to do jog control, but not sure if any of the pendants would work, still need to do research on a real pendant solution.

I tried an old wireless gamepad I had, but it just wasn't connecting to the pc reliably enough.

So I did a little looking and found a little wireless keyboard on Amazon for 15$. Could probably find this kind of thing cheaper if you tried a little harder than I did.

But it works great. Just doubles up on what the keyboard on the laptop does with a little touch control as well.

20151030_165024.jpg

 
Nope. I had a joytokey app for the gamepad. It worked fine, but I just couldn't get the gamepad to connect.

This connects and all the keys work just the same as the built in keyboard, at least, so far as I can tell. No extra software or anything.
 
Brent,

Yes the hand held pendants do that, plus more.

LCD display with backlight.
Large E-Stop button.
X, Y, Z and A axis selection.
Step, Velocity and Continuous jogging.
Slow jog rate, Feed rate and Spindle Speed change through MPG.
Spindle, program Start, Pause, Stop and Rewind controls.
Work with any Mach3 Screen.
P2s-v2.jpg

The only thing I do on the computer is load the program. I do EVERYTHING else from here.

There are a few different jog modes. Axis motion is made via turning the nice comfortable stainless steel hand wheel.

I can "step" at .0001 - .001 - .010. That is - step increment per click on the wheel

The hand wheel has 100 clicks per revolution, some are 50 per revolution

It is settable, so that the speed of axis motion can be set to whatever you want.

The button on the left is an execution button - cycle start if you will. I love the "E" stop - it is also a reset button.

I can control feedrate override - with the F-S selector

I can set ZERO and I can home the machine, in a couple of different ways.

I can even change the Mach3 screen on the computer from the pendant.

I like a tailed device - and the tail is LONG and not at all a problem

I would not leave home without it.

It is NOT $15, but then - neither is the machine.
It is my main device to control the machine - why not something GREAT.

I did the keyboard, I did the joystick, I did the shuttlePro - each better than the other, this is better yet.

 
The big issue is that I'm not using Mach 3.

There are some folks working on making different jog dials and such work with Chilipeppr and other Gcode sending software, but getting some of that to work is not trivial.

This, on the other hand, was cheap, and works immediately.

I'll be looking at getting something more robust working someday, but for now, this works very well.
 
This gentleman has one of the XHC wireless jog shuttles working with Chilipeppr, but it requires a a significant amount of futzing around to get it working. It is cool though the way he has it work. It does not update the display, but once that would get working, I'd seriously consider something like that.

[video]https://plus.google.com/communities/104346367498010042037/s/pendant[/video]
 
The one I have may work on your system - it is not just a mach3 device

Sorry - I don't mean to sound like I am pushing something.

I just mean to point out things that are available


No worries Leo! I value your input, don't get me wrong.

I'm just not working with the same level of stuff you are. There are things in the works to do some of this stuff, but at the hobby level, some of it's just not there yet. I wish I had more time to devote to programming some of this stuff, cause its really interesting.
 
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