Announcing Deckard: StreamDeck support for LinuxCNC

rodw wrote:

I would rather buy an industrial wireless pendant/MPG for similar money.
 

This is another topic, but those wireless MPG's have never seemed like a great idea to me.  They look convenient, especially for large routers or plasma tables, but potentially fraught with peril.  How robust is the wireless protocol, and how exactly does it behave with potential interruptions/interference?  I definitely sleep better using hard-wired controls for potentially dangerous and expensive CNC machines. 

I saw one with an mushroom E-Stop on it, which seemed optimistic at best.  I don't think that would pass any sort of safety system design review.  It could be designed to fail safe if the wireless link drops out, but then if you had a brief interruption of the wireless link, your whole system would go into E-Stop and potentially ruin work or tools.  If it's more tolerant of wireless dropouts, then it no longer is truly safe as an E-Stop.
 

TangentAudio wrote:

 Building something similar from scratch is really not that hard from a software/firmware standpoint.  I think it would be a fair amount of work to replicate similar hardware so it looks as nice and functions as reliably, but not impossible.
 

The problem with it is that it's a plastic box, besides the fact that nobody's gonna buy one of those at the price for them brand new for this space. They're $250 for the XL. Being that it's that expensive I don't think anyone would really want to chop it up or glue it to something to make it practical, a box sitting on a desk isn't really the form factor that works out for machine tools.

Realistically I don't think it would be that difficult, simple PCBs are dirt cheap and button caps like that could be made a number of ways. Some conductive rubber interface would be a bit more difficult but you can buy conductive rubber orings so there might even be some clever way to get that part done too. Buttons can be interfaced any number of ways.

I'd been looking to rework the button setup in my control panel. If something like this worked with a normal HDMI LCD like something from Amazon I'd try it myself

tommylight wrote:

Any LCD with a Resistive touchscreen (new Capacitve won't work), most new PC's have more than one Video output, so that would connect to the free output, the a bit of software to make sure each section of the screen remains the same size no matter what is shown and change the video accordingly, that is all there is to it.
Hardware part is easy enough, software takes a bit more doing to get it right, although i would go for hardware solution to keep the sizes and limits in check, makes it less flexible but easier to use.
Software solution would allow for full screen video and gif's and blinking signs and such, although those could also be done in hardware but would require flashing to change.
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On the topic of HMI, what would fall into that category?
 

Capacitive's would work, probably better, they just need special consideration. I don't think touchscreens would work that well in general to be honest, they aren't meant to be activated with large surfaces like wide buttons and the touch layer is fragile.

Some pretty good ideas here:


would probably work better using light dome switches rather than tactile switches, not really sure how the software interface on a StreamDeck works so it's hard to say what's actually necessary but I think the electronics could be quite a bit simpler

Good stuff.  Along similar lines, one of my friends designed custom keys with tiny displays in them so he could make a fancy CAD macro pad for Fusion 360.



I can't find a good photo of the current rev of his custom keys, but here's one of the earlier prototypes:
 
 

TangentAudio wrote:

rodw wrote:

I would rather buy an industrial wireless pendant/MPG for similar money.
 

This is another topic, but those wireless MPG's have never seemed like a great idea to me.  They look convenient, especially for large routers or plasma tables, but potentially fraught with peril.  How robust is the wireless protocol, and how exactly does it behave with potential interruptions/interference?  I definitely sleep better using hard-wired controls for potentially dangerous and expensive CNC machines. 

I saw one with an mushroom E-Stop on it, which seemed optimistic at best.  I don't think that would pass any sort of safety system design review.  It could be designed to fail safe if the wireless link drops out, but then if you had a brief interruption of the wireless link, your whole system would go into E-Stop and potentially ruin work or tools.  If it's more tolerant of wireless dropouts, then it no longer is truly safe as an E-Stop.

 

I would much rather have a dumptruck hardwired operating in real time than a Ferrari dependent on a USB connection!
I belive the 433 MhZ pendants I use are compliant and include a dual circuit estop. Here is the receiver. I have used one for 7-8 years and it never let me down.

 

 
 

Rod, how do you always manage to derail the point and make it about something that you have that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic?

I'm sure there's plenty of threads about pendants, how did it end up here?

It's a clever idea that tangentaudio came up with here. I'm not a fan of the streamdeck but the concept is good. It really wouldn't be a huge feat to replicate such a thing with an off the shelf 7" LCD and a microcontroller to handle button inputs and spit it out to a SmartSerial port which is "realitme"......other than software which isn't my thing but if anyone wants to grind away at the keyboard I'm sure I could make a device and post the plans.

blazini36 wrote:

Rod, how do you always manage to derail the point and make it about something that you have that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic?
 

He showed up in another one of my threads to pee in my cheerios as well, incorrectly suggesting that I didn't implement my home switches correctly on my latest conversion project, rudely suggesting I should go study the documentation.  When I pointed out why he was wrong, not to mention that I've been using LinuxCNC for 15 years now... suddenly no more replies. 

I realize he's been helpful to a lot of folks, particularly with Ethercat stuff, but this kind of behavior isn't particularly useful to the community.

It's a clever idea that tangentaudio came up with here. I'm not a fan of the streamdeck but the concept is good. It really wouldn't be a huge feat to replicate such a thing with an off the shelf 7" LCD and a microcontroller to handle button inputs and spit it out to a SmartSerial port which is "realitme"......other than software which isn't my thing but if anyone wants to grind away at the keyboard I'm sure I could make a device and post the plans.

I hear you, the StreamDeck itself isn't ideal for the environment, but the concept has merit for CNC machine control.  I'd enjoy collaborating on a project, but my main problem is lack of time these days.  My background is in software, firmware and hardware development, as well as GUI and HMI design, so it's right in my wheelhouse.
 

Take it easy there, guys. No point getting personal because somebody got off topic.