Joypad confusion.

Let me start out by saying I know next to nothing about doing any kind of custom setup in linuxCNC but I am willing to learn and hope I can get some help. I have LinuxCNC running on a 3-axis mill and right now I am just using keyboard and mouse to input into the software. I figured a way to start learning some of the in and out of linuxCNC would be to set up a joypad for the machine and customize the button settings and such. I will first get the thing set up and working before I move on to modifying the controls.

I tried doing a search on how to install a joypad, but I find multiple ways to do it. It also looks as if some of the methods were originated some time ago and the pages not updated in a long time. Also, being a newbie I find some of the stuff a bit confusing. What I am trying to figure out is if there is a certain preferred method to implement a joypad and if the instructions for that method are current. A step by step, or "Joypads for dummies" would be great but I just can't seem to find it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks. That is one of the ones I found. Just wanted to make sure I had a good and current set of instructions to start from. I'll be giving it a go.

One more question. In the house I use the linuxCNC simulator on my laptop to play with stuff. I assume this will work on the sim right?

Thanks much

I also use John's and would recommend it.

No reason not to use it on the sim.

The WIKI has information on using the joypad and different approaches.

Once you are up and running if you want to add more features you might get some ideas from...

wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Adding...imple_Remote_Pendant

Rick G

Thanks guys. I got the joypad working in sim mode. John's simple one worked fine but the one with the incremental option didn't right away. I had to create a new sim profile to do it. This was because the canned 3-axis millimg machine sim uses a hal component to simulate automatic homing that interfered with the joypad. I created a sim profile to mot use auto homing and then the joypad worked fine.

I would like to modify the hal file for the joypad to use the mode switch to select incremental or jog mode. How it is now works, but I see no real way to determine if the mode is inc or jog except to just maje a move. I figure if it was tied to themode switch somehow you just look at the led next to the mode seitch and you know right away (ie: lit is inc, not lit is jog)

I guess I will have to learn some more to see if I can make that change.

I would like to modify the hal file for the joypad to use the mode switch to select incremental or jog mode. How it is now works, but I see no real way to determine if the mode is inc or jog except to just maje a move

Good point, I found that to be a draw back.
If you look at the wiki I changed that to use two different buttons, the #4 for incremental and the #6? (the front button below the #4) for proportional.
That way just hit the right button and no more guessing. I also added two different audible beeps to confirm the mode using beep and the pc speaker.
Look at part two of the wiki.

Rick G

HI
Is the hal_joystick component still supported in 2.7 or was it a cutom comp? i dont seem to be able to load it in HAL. Maybe i should download and compile?

Thanks
Henk