Help configuring a Pendant

I've made my first cuts and all is going well, so now I'm playing around with my workflow and going between my plasma machine and the computer I'm running Sheetcam on.

I'm using QtPlasmaC, and I have a USB Playstation controller that works with jogging X, Y, Z and that part is working ok, but I would like to add a button to run from the pendant.

I'm not certain, but I'm assuming that I would add this to my "custom_postgui.hal" file, but I'm not sure how the "net" lines work.

In the "xxx.hal" file I see what I think is the command to run:

net plasmac:program-run   plasmac.program-run => halui.program.run

The button I want to add to this is "input.0.btn-base4"

Any help would be appreciated.  Thank you!

 

I would probably use an or2 component so your button or plasmac can command halui.program-run

How would one do that?

I entered the following into my "custom_postgui.hal" file, and it does work from either a mouse-click or the pendant, but I'm not sure I need all of the line or not.

net jog-usb-run <=qtplasmac.ext_run_pause <= input.0.btn_base4

This runs the gcode program from the "Start" button on the pendant and will cycle through Run-Pause-Resume when pressed again. I don't know if I need the "jog-usb-run" or not. I made that part up, but it seems to work.

My next attempt will be to zero X and zero Y from the pendant.

What I'm trying to do is to be able to manually jog the machine to the start point, zero out the X&Y and start the cutting all from the pendant instead of having to go back to the keyboard to zero out and start the program.

Any thoughts on how I could zero out X & Y with the push of a button?

Thanks for your help!

Merry Christmas - Happy Holidays

I was reading about G92, and it seems like I could just add that to my post processor. Typically, I won't be cutting a whole sheet of parts at one time.

How do you folks accomplish cutting a few parts, moving to a new location and cutting a few more parts?

I'm really excited after just a few cuts how well this works. I may need to look into optimizing the feed rates, height settings, and amp settings, but so far my parts are far better than I had imagined. Should have done this long ago. (and I'm just using the little PowerMax30 I've had for years)

I connect my pendant to the "qtplasmac.ext_run_pause" as you do, my hal line is:

The "jog-usb-run" you used is just a net name, you can use anything so long as it doesn't conflict with an existing net name, as you can see the net name I used is "pendant:start-pause"

For zeroing X and Y use the "qtplasmac.ext_touchoff" pin.
linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/plasma/qtpl....html#qt_ext-hal-pin
 
Edit:
For a few parts you could use the work system coordinates:
linuxcnc.org/docs/devel/html/gcode/coord...#_coordinate_systems

Thanks and Merry Christmas!

So, the "qtplasmac.ext_touchoff" just zeros out the joints? I thought it might move to zero so I didn't try that yet. I did find, that adding the G92 did work for what I was doing. I'll try looking at the "qtplasmac.ext_touchoff".

Thanks again!

Yes, it touches off X and Y to zero.

It has identical functionality to the X0Y0 button in the DRO frame.
 

I stole your example and integrated your "qtplasmac.ext_touchoff" into my pendant (and that works perfectly)

Could you please explain to me what the => or <= operations mean? I can't find any real descriptions for those (and others) I can assume, but I'd rather ask. (it may help others)

Is there a way to jog using the same controls in the GUI (so that the pendant follows the rules on screen) Right now, my pendant jogging is always continuous and is at speeds defined in my custom HAL file rather than what the GUI is set at. I would like a way to cycle through the options with one pendant button and jog according to the GUI rules, but I haven't figured that part out yet.

Thank you again for all you do for us. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

re: Could you please explain to me what the => or <= operations mean? I can't find any real descriptions for those (and others) I can assume, but I'd rather ask. (it may help others)

They don't mean anything they are there just to show the the direction of the flow but are quite often wrong. linuxcnc does not take any notice of them so they can be ignored.

rodw, could you please elaborate? I'm still on the steep side of the learning curve with all this (bit of information overload by adding a new to me OS on top of the software). I'm not sure how the "or2" component works.

By using the example below, both the GUI input on screen as well as the button on the USB pendant will start the program.

"net pendant-run-pause <= qtplasmac.ext_run_pause <= input.0.btn-base4"

you don't happen to know the HAL pin names that correspond to the on-screen (GUI) jog controls do you?