Re: More CAF...

Arne Chr. Jorgensen wrote:

>

And there is other stuff. Do you really click those menu buttons on
the EMC panel out in a workshop. I convinced a manufactor to put in
an encoder hand wheel for moving the axis once. The reason was that
I found it so difficult to jog the axis with switches, and I would
like a feed rate over ride as a knob. Maybe an analog joystick for
the axis ?
<

I've been asked many times to support using a handwheel encoder, which
could be put on the unused 4th axis encoder input if you have a 4-axis
STG board and a typical 3-axis mill.

My thoughts on this would be to selectively slave one of the three axes
to the 4th axis encoder, so that the 4th axis encoder would serve as the
input to the PID on the slaved axis. Then, as you moved the handwheel,
the slaved axis would follow it. Varying the scaling on the 4th axis
encoder input would allow for varying sensitivity. It gets tricky since
you have to make sure the slaved axis doesn't jump when it gets slaved
and de-slaved. Has anyone done anything like this?

I have used a $9.99 PC joystick to move the EMC around. The stick
controls the XY motion and the buttons control Z. Would anyone want
this? I would put it in the xemc, which could sense the presence of a
joystick and default to normal behavior if none were present.

--Fred