As the title suggests, looking for suggestions for a jog pendant for the HDM. Appreciate your input!
Some folks use a game controller:
or w/ keyboard remapping you can use a gamepad:
or, you can use a numeric keypad or custom keypad.
I use the Rii mini keyboard. The top right hand direction pad joggs X and Y, and page up/down joggs Z. The numbers 1-4 toggle between increments
2 Likes
I bought a handy touchscreen monitor to hang off my cabinet so I could more easily use it to control the HDM, but I think the touch driver for the monitor tries too hard to debounce press-to-click events, so even if I hold my finger on a button, I only get a single press. That is, unless I ‘massage’ the button with constant motion, but honestly we don’t know each other well enough for that yet.
SO…instead I ordered an XHC WHB04B from ebay. It’s a fairly common wireless USB pendant for ~$100.
Docs:
https://www.cdxhctech.com/html/eProduct/view_137_363.html
I’ve cobbled together an HID driver for it, and so far can detect all the buttons, jog wheel, and speed settings. Another couple days (time permitting), and I’ll have it spitting out keyboard shortcuts to drive CM as though it was just another USB keyboard.
However…this is not really ideal. I’m guessing that the motion is going to be jerky and fast jog wheel spins are going to fall on deaf ears. What I’d rather do is hit an API in CM to directly access the motion controls so that fast jog actually works (hint, hint Carbide devs). The display on the pendant could also be updated to accurately reflect the X/Y/Z positions with such an API available.
Anyways, I think it’ll work OK without the API link - better than trying to wrangle a laptop or a touchscreen around.
I’ll make this thing available on github for those who want to use it.
2 Likes
There was such an API in CM4, but it was a requirement of the hybrid architecture which that version had.
Things which mimic keypresses seem to work well in my experience, w/in the limits of the keyboard shortcuts and their drivers (can’t recall what it was that kept me from finding the Countour Design ShuttleXpress workable — maybe not being able to switch keyboard shortcuts on the fly?).
I’m using a xbox like game controller - it’s supported in Carbide motion.
2 Likes
Any chance of getting something like that in again? Or even the DLL approach like Mach3 has?
Or even just adding more keyboard shortcuts for greater degrees of control?
2 Likes
That is a question way above my pay grade — please check in w/ the developers (write in to support@carbide3d.com) or maybe put in a feature request?
1 Like
Where can I find more info on this?
Anything with touch input is not ideal for sure. I did look at the XHC as well, wasn’t sure if someone had figured out how to make it work with CM. Would love to look at your GitHub! Thanks
See the first link I posted above:
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.