looking for a pendant to work with Cslabs ip-m mach 3

[charlieuk]

im looking of some sort of pendant/hand wheel to work with my ip-m and mach3 that im running, the cs labs one is crazy expensive! can I just plug one of the £60 ebay jobs in with a usb to my pc and it work or is it more complicated than that?

[Chaz]

im looking of some sort of pendant/hand wheel to work with my ip-m and mach3 that im running, the cs labs one is crazy expensive! can I just plug one of the £60 ebay jobs in with a usb to my pc and it work or is it more complicated than that?

Yes, you can. Ive got one that I am doing and have done one before.

As long as it has the correct A and B pulses it will work, refer to the CS Labs MPG module (you need the module) manual.

Otherwise you can use one of the Mach 3 PC ones that dont work directly into the controller however they are not as good (but might suffice for what you need).

[charlieuk]

thanks for the reply, I think the main function I really need is just to be able to jog the machine to set to set the work coordinate as I cant reach the computer from the machine. what would you recommend then? any one in particular ?

[Chaz]

thanks for the reply, I think the main function I really need is just to be able to jog the machine to set to set the work coordinate as I cant reach the computer from the machine. what would you recommend then? any one in particular ?

I dont know all the 'cheaper' options. Up to you, there are some wireless ones and some that work via USB. Of course, if you need to set offsets and zeroing, you normally do this via the screen / keyboard anyways - perhaps move the PC / setup?

[charlieuk]

Its just the jogging really im happy to go back to the pc to do the rest, The pc its as close as I can get it but unfortunately just out of arms reach when looking up close, Its quite a large machine. If its likely to work I guess ill just take a punt on one of the wired usb ones. Im still trying to figure out setting up a z zero probe thing.

many thanks for the advice

[Chaz]

Its just the jogging really im happy to go back to the pc to do the rest, The pc its as close as I can get it but unfortunately just out of arms reach when looking up close, Its quite a large machine. If its likely to work I guess ill just take a punt on one of the wired usb ones. Im still trying to figure out setting up a z zero probe thing.

many thanks for the advice

I recently bought Ger's 2010 screenset. Its only a few 10s of dollars. Get that and use it, makes probing easier and it comes with a dedicated set of screens for probing etc.

If you are around the West London area I can show you how I use it on my current machine.