CNC user interface

Years ago I converted an old round column mill to CNC, at the time I was not thrilled with the pendants available and the thought of the pendant constantly falling on the floor etc so I made a custom control board and mounted it in a convenient place on the mill. I also made and extension off to the right of the table for a specialized keyboard and mouse. I used a touch screen display for Mach3

I'm now in the middle of a CNC conversion of a knee mill and I plan to make another custom control board. I will be using LinuxCNC this time.

Before blindly plowing ahead I want to explore what others have done for their user interfaces, no shame in copying a great idea. So please post an image of your setup and if some aspect of the user interface really seems particularly handy please note that and also if some aspect is annoying or in retrospect you would have done it differently please note that as well.

Image of my old setup.

Could I suggest that you just try the interfaces already available within LinuxCNC?If none of them feel comfortable then it might be time to go your own way,to diverge without trying what already exists could be a recipe for a lot of work with little reward.

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Originally Posted by routalot

Could I suggest that you just try the interfaces already available within LinuxCNC?If none of them feel comfortable then it might be time to go your own way,to diverge without trying what already exists could be a recipe for a lot of work with little reward.

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Good point. I have been busy with ballscrew and servo modifications (almost complete) and so I'm thinking ahead to next steps. With my old mill I used a touchscreen but much preferred using actually buttons especially for things like moving to a precise point visually with unknown coordinates for example a scribed reference point when starting a new part. Being able to look at the point while simultaneously manipulating say the 0.001 jog buttons to home in on the point just seems to work better than using a keyboard or touchscreen. Rattling off a custom control board PCB is the easiest part for me because I'm an electronics guy, the machinist aspect is just a really fun hobby for me.

On the Linux front, I picked up an old HP PC and loaded LinuxCNC, I'm still waiting for the MESA board to arrive I will then be digging into that aspect.

Thanks for posting