It would be great if you could develop a remote, wired or wireless for the controller.
Hi StanNelson and other members,
I’m thinking about building a handheld controller for the X-carve.
Not a standard (or reworked) keyboard that controls some shortcuts in Easel, but a fancy one, generating G-code, + merging it’s G-code with the G-code coming from Easel.
It should be a USB device for the PC, using the USB-CDC class (RS232 over USB). It should act like an x-carve to the PC, receiving the stream of G-code from Easel. This can propably be accomplished using an of-the-shelf FTDI cable. The system itself can be a microcontroller, or an of-the-shelf beaglebone, raspberry PI,…
It also should act as a USB host, sending the merged G-code streams to the actual X-carve. When using a beagle or a PI, this isn’t that hard. Plenty of USB’s on board.
Any suggestions on the functionality? This is what i thought of myself:
-jogging using joystick or rotary encoder
-feed and speed override
-stop button (emergency)
-spindle on/off
-vac on/off
-maybe a display showing actual coordinates.
Any comment or suggestion is welcome.
Happy milling,
Koen (Koon for the non-dutch)
Some folks have made these. Search the forums for ‘pendant’.