Re: Jog wheel

[Brian Pitt <bfp-at-earthlink.net>]

sorta like this?  
http://www.sutter.com/mp285.html

it would be good as an electronic/'manual' control with DRO
but if your going to run it from the PC anyway why not just go for full CNC?
most of the usual 'offhand' cuts you would do manually can be done just about
as well with a single axis jog function and any move of 2 or more axes can be
done in MDI with a few lines of code 
the main use for the jog control is just to touch off your tools and fixtures
so you would almost never use a multi-axis jog control even on those 
machines that have it (most don't)

I'm not  saying its a bad idea if it suits the way you like to work 
but I think you would use it less and less as you get more comfortable 
with G-code and MDI
the usual set of jog controls is a group of +/- buttons for each axis
with an axis and  increment select knob or button(s)
but just a single encoder handwheel to switch between the axes
so its not really all that different from the full knob-box idea
and EMC already has everything except the handwheel 

 I would stay away from using the game ports "analog" inputs
they were marginal at best even back in the early 80's when they were
designed and unless you made a realtime task to read them the values
would be unreliable under EMCs realtime schedule

some of the newer all digital game pads might work  
they act kinda like a mouse with a built in microcontroler to read the
buttons and pots then send the data in serial format over the game ports
digital input pins but you would probably need different software for each
brand of controler

Brian


On Thursday 30 May 2002 11:33, you wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> This jog wheel discussion reminded me of something I've been wondering
> about for some time.  I'd love to have a "machine controller" that looks
> like this:
>
>     A small, handheld box with three knobs (potentiometers), each knob
> having
>         its own three-position toggle switch
>     Each knob controls the speed of the x,y or z axis
>     Each toggle switch turns on/off motion in its own axis
>
>     The x-axis toggle switch is marked  left / off / right
>     The y axis toggle switch is marked  fwd / off / back
>     The z-axis toggle switch is marked  up / off / down
>
> Basically, an adjustable motor drive on each axis. [ I guess this is
> something that non-CNC machines sometimes have.  Please pardon my
> ignorance, I'm an amateur working with a small homemade three-axis
> mill.]   I know that the keyboard sort of approximates this function,
> but not in a very convenient way.
>
> Better yet, if the controller was made to have an obvious X-Y-Z
> orientation, then labels on the knobs/switches would be unnecessary.
>
> This way, when you just want to use the CNC machine in more of a
> conventional way, you could just manually "home in" on the part with the
> toggle switches.  I was thinking that the game port would be a good
> place for both the analog speed control input and the toggle switch
> input.  (Hmm...two game controllers = 4 potentiometer inputs and 4 (?)
> switch inputs, right?  MIght not be enough inputs for all three axes.)
>
> Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out there.
>
> tnx,
> Patrick