Thank you sir. That helps considerably. I will check out the water proof labels. They should last longer than plain paper. It will be nice to not have to look back and forth to the computer screen to accomplish a simple task.
Hereās the one that I bought on amazon.ca, H.
Sticker Paper Quality Waterproof A4 White Matter Self Adhesive Sticky Back Label Printing Paper Sheet Inkjet Laser Printable (10 Sheets)
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G, a couple more questions. What are the 2 xy left and right keys for? Iām guessing, increase/decrease jog feed rate or distance. What is the āsendā key for? Again Iām guessing, to send a command to grbl. Do you use it with num lock on or off? That brings up a thought, can num lock be used to alter the numeric key functions so there would be 9/10 more function capabilities? Thatās it for now. Thanks.
H: You guessed it. The xy+ and xy- keys increase the step size of the two axes for manually jogging the machine.
The send key sends the tool path to the Mill, just as the send āarrowā icon does in UGS.
I almost always leave numlock on, but you are right. You could turn off numlock and get several more commands. Since doing the labels, Iāve added the command to multiply the xy step size by 10 and divide the xy step size by 10. These are mappable commands in the keymap feature of UGS. I mapped them to the same keys are the xy+ and xy- keys. It keeps it simple. I donāt use them much, usually when I am mounting a board, to get the gantry out of the way. But, they are handy to have.
Generally, though, I find that I donāt need any more commands and keeping numlock on keeps things simple. I just know that if I mapped more keys with numlock off, I would screw up and hit a key thinking something was going to happen and something else would. Really, the only time that I use a mouse now is to open the toolpath file and to use the probe. I wouldnāt mind being able to map the probe functions to the keypad, but they are not mappable in UGS.
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Thanks G. I guess the best thing to do now is play around with it and see what happens. Most likely without a bit in the router. Like you I donāt want to much confusion with too many key options. Using the KISS principle is always best.
Grant, looks like a great solution. Anything you can do to get away from the full size keyboard is a plus. I still keep the monitor close so I can see what the jg speeds and increments are.
Tks, Bill. Like you, I keep my monitor close - itās on an arm. I like this keypad though. Itās handy to be watching the bit while moving it around. I wouldnāt have thought of it at all if not for your controller post. Many ways to skin a cat.
Grant, did my setup and testing. Sweet! I love the keypad. Thanks to you and Bill for posting this type of info. I think I need to move my monitor closer like you guys. My vision isnāt what it used to be. Did you buy or build your monitor arm? I tried putting it on the back side of the table but itās too far away. Two choices - a much bigger monitor or on an arm or platform much closer. Oh well! One more thing to do.
H: I bought this one from Amazon
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07CHKWNKC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I have spare monitors, so this was the only cost. My Mill sits close to my mitre saw bench, which has vertical panels to keep the dust contained. I was able to mount this arm on one of the panels. The monitor swings away when I want to use the mitre saw, but I can bring it in close so that my old eyes can see what Iām doing when Iām playing with the Mill.
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Another data point to this older threadā¦ I tried today to use a new Xbox One Bluetooth compatible controller with the Longmill. Had to use a fairly recent version of UGS that has the Joystick option tab under Tools > Options > UGS > Joystick.
It worked great (after pairng my controller to the laptop) except it was skipping, like I was making repeated tiny inputs. It turns out there is a widely reported problem with Xbox One controllers having what is known as āstick driftā in one or more of the analog controllers. The problem is extremely well documented on the Internet, and one guy filed a lawsuit in Western Washington just a few days ago (class action) suit against Microsoft because they havenāt been fixing controllers outside of the 90 day warrant (which I am now outside of).
My controller is effectively brand news as I bought a new racing wheel with an Xbox One X just before Christmas and this controller has maybe been used for 5 minutes as I can do everything from the wheel. So I thought, wouldnāt it make a great pendant. And boy does it work smoothly and beautifully when it works. If I can get it repaired it will be brilliant to have, but right now I would say it is a major safety worry to having a drifting controller wirelessly connected to the system.
Anyone else seen this?
-Jeff
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Hmm, Iām not so sure there isnāt also a UGS/Longmill issue at play here. Iām going to upgrade my UGS to the latest Nightly tomorrow and re-try, but I discovered that even if I powered off/disconnected my controller, the machine kept doing the skipping/jog thing. Even if I disconnect UGS and then reconnect it (with no controller connected) it goes right back to doing it.
I tried the newer BT Xbox One X controller above, and then three older Xbox one controllers all via USB and they all triggered the same kind of response from the Longmill (with the exception that via the BT based controller, I could carefully get it to zero and stop moving, but it would āfall offā that position and start jogging again after a little bit).
-Jeff
So I decided to take another kick at getting an xbox controller to work today. I grabbed a USB cable and a first gen XBox one controller and added it to windows. Same jerky-ness problem as before. I tried the latest nightly build (I think it was August 10 2020 or so) and no love.
Then I started reading through the developer discussion on GitHub and I noticed that the āZero Threshold %ā seemed like a promising option. Itās not clear in the UI but that appears to be the % of the distance either side of zero where UGS will consider the analog joystick idle. Said differently - make this a higher/wider value and you should stop UGS from reacting to very minor changes in the levels the analog stick sends even when the controller is idle.
Sure enough I widened it to about 5% after some testing, and it worked fine with the wired controller.
I went and grabbed my newer Bluetooth unit and paired it with my laptop. It worked better than before but still had a mind of itās own. After a bit of experimenting I settled on a value of 7% (for now anyway) and it seems to be reliable. Woohoo. No more leaning over the able and reaching WAAAAY over to the laptop and hitting the wrong key and crashing a bit in to a workpiece while trying to align things.
-Jeff
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Hey Jeff @jwoody18 ,
What version of UGS has the ā¦āTools > Options > UGS > Joystickā capability? I downloaded the newest nightly build (Version 2.0 20190814) and do not have it. Was it removed later?
I am trying to be as efficient as possible, but I can do the joytokey method if that is the best way.
Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!
I am using the August version that you are and I have it. The menu layering is a but cluttered in UGS, I suspect you may not be in the right spot. I had trouble finding the Joystick option intially too - itās one layer deeper than you expect. Iāll try and take a screenshot when I am next at that machine.
@cm7936 Not to be contradictory, Clinton, but the 2019 version of UGS is not the most recent. There are been a few since then. I believe the most recent may be August 2020, but there may well be newer versions than that.
Thanks for the reply guys! @gwilki, I downloaded Platform 2.0 latest stable release on the download page here https://winder.github.io/ugs_website/download/ And this is what I seeā¦is this not the right place for the newest release? FYI, I am not trying to download this on my phone, I just double checked and took the screenshot from my phone. Using this on Windows 10 pc.
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@cm7936 You are in the right place, Clinton. On the same page are the nightly builds. Thatās what I use. I guess itās a calculated risk, but Iāve not had any problems with the august 2020 nightly build. Of course YMMV.
I can also concur on the nightly build being pretty stable for me. Have had no issues with the probe module or the sending of the g-code.
Other than the renaming of the config file to let the software know where Java is (not really a big deal since I knew where to look after the last Java update). It has been great!
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I would be very interested. Tx