[mp3]

I have just completed the HAL that enables a £2 Hong Kong USB gamepad (no analogue joysticks) to be used as a jogging pendent for the X,Y and Z axis.

A push of the top left rear button cycles through the jog speeds. The lower left rear button must be pressed before jog can take place. Both right rear buttons when pressed give E stop. The front middle buttons select manual or programme resume.

I did find a problem with the left hand joystick buttons that are used for X and Y. After initialisation, by the Axis postgui HAL, these button are not initialised, but return a value indicating that the left X and lower Y buttons have been pressed. The HAL logic is arranged so that you must press one of these keys to initialise the returned value before the jog enable button will work. If gamepads with joysticks do the same then you could get a jog with only the enable button pressed when using the joypad Hal files that appear online and in the Knowledge base.

I drew the logic circuit using Free PCB circuit drawing package. I just added outlines to its library. Helps a lot for the design and HAL debugging. The HAL has run out of AND2 gates and I had to make one up using inverters and an OR gate, so adding a fourth axis might be difficult.

I have uploaded a YouTube video of it in action
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18DhP3zjP24

Files attached:

[mp3]

I have done further work on the gamepad, adding incremental jog and correcting the HAL so that pause, run and step work using HAL code written by Anders Wallin which use Toggle2nist HAL logic to interface the run stop code. Documentation I had found indicated the maximum number of logic elements was 9, this has proved not to be the case and this HAL used 24 AND gates.
The HAL uses an arrow (green or greyed out) to indicate whether jog or increment is selected.

Files are attached below:

[sheepdog]

i am about to try this joypad install thingy will report back, hopefully. mark

ok a trip to wallmart 19.00 game controlled and woo hoo it works in just 5 minutes.

[mp3]

Happy to hear of your success, if you make any improvements, please report back.

Malcolm

[sheepdog]

LinuxCNC with USB controller - Qjoypad - YouTube

here is a video that i found and i followed his instructions and like i said it took me 5 minutes to get it running. i just downloaded a file installed the software plugged up my xbox controller and it worked first time. mark

[cncnoel]

This is what I did to add my joypad with ANALOGUE control from the sticks!! I used rejoystick to map the buttons initially.
Presuming your machine is called "my-mill"
I identified the USB joypad by typing in a terminal window

lsusb

My joypad is named "DragonRise Inc. Generic USB Joystick ".

cnc-mill@cnc-mill:~$ lsusb
Bus 004 Device 003: ID 0e8f:0021 GreenAsia Inc.
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0079:0006 DragonRise Inc. Generic USB Joystick
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 046d:c001 Logitech, Inc. N48/M-BB48 [FirstMouse Plus]
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
cnc-mill@cnc-mill:~$

So in your machine's my-mill.hal file add the following lines

# joypad
loadusr -W hal_input -KRAL DragonRise

In your machines my-mill.ini file, under the [HAL] section add the following if it is not already there

HALUI = halui

Add the following line to your custom_postgui.hal file The number is in mm per minute for my machine.

setp halui.jog-speed 900

Add the following to your custom_postgui.hal file

net joy-x-jog halui.jog.0.analog <= input.0.abs-x-position
net joy-y-jog halui.jog.1.analog <= input.0.abs-y-position
net joy-z-jog halui.jog.2.analog <= input.0.abs-rz-position

I needed to reverse the direction of Y and Z axes.

setp input.0.abs-y-scale -127.5
setp input.0.abs-rz-scale -127.5

I found the left hand buttons can work under HAL too if you use input.0.btn.hat0x-is-neg, hat0x-is-pos, hat0y-is-neg and hat0y-is-pos.

I use the right SICK x-movement (input.0.abs-rx-is-pos and input.0.abs-rx-is-neg) to increment & decrement the jog-step,
and the right BUTTONS x-movement (input.0.btn.top and input.0.btn.thumb) to select continuous/incremental mode

Other button mapping I found useful

Key	Function	hal.btn	pad-button
F1	E-Stop	input.0.btn-base	6 - Top Left lower
F2	Power	input.0.btn-top2	4 - Top Left upper
Shf	Shift-key	input.0.btn-base2	7 - Top Right lower
Ent	Enter	input.0.btn-pinkie	5 - Top Right upper
F7	SpindleOn	input.0.btn-base3	8 - select
F8	Dust Extract	input.0.btn-base4	9 - start
R	Run	input.0.btn-base5	10 - press left stick
End	Touch-Off	input.0.btn-base6	11 - press right stick

I use the left buttons for XY incremental jog, and the right up/down for Z incremental jog.

All in all a busy little joypad!!

Hope this is helpful to you.

Noel.