Re: Jog wheel

[Steve White <steve.white-at-lomar.com>]

Patrick,

    I have given some thought to a similar "handheld" box, although I
planned to use encoders for each axis of the machine.  Switches would change
the jog increments .0002, .02, .2 etc..  The "box" could have the jog wheels
in positions representative of a manual machine for intuitive use.  For
example, on my knee type vertical mill I was thinking of putting X on the
right side, Y in front, and Z on top.  You could also include a spring
centered toggle switch on each face for rapid jogging.  A pushbutton "dead
man" switch might be a good idea to only enable the switches and hand wheels
if you are holding the box.
    I know that industrial encoders (pulse generators) with hand wheels are
fairly expensive, but in my case I managed to pull several from dead
controls found in a scrap yard over the past year or so.  I now have three
(almost) alike, so the box won't look like the fugitive from the scrap heap
that it really is.  The only drawback I see is their physical size for
mounting into a handy size box.  I have not implemented this yet, but I plan
to.  I am using a Galil servo board which has auxiliary encoder inputs for
each axis, so that's not a problem.  This is a machine I started to retrofit
before I found the EMC project, but I plan to use EMC for the next one - a
24 x 72 LeBlond lathe.

Regards,
Steve

PKF 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