Pendant

Hi, all.

I'm currently converting my BF25 to CNC controlled by Kflop and I'm planning to make a pendant for it, but as I'm fairly new to CNC and the use of a pendant in particular, I'm not sure what I should put on it.

I have seen various pendants you can buy, but I don't really get much wiser by looking at them...

What I have planned so far is:
- 2 MPGs so I can control two axes at once, e.g. X/Y
- E-stop
- Keyboard. I can easily have up to 16 keys
- LED indicators. Again, I can easily have up to 16, but would I need that many? What should they indicate?
- Display 20x4, for info and menu
- Rotary encoder with switch for menu control

As for what the keys would control, so far my thoughts are
- Start
- Stop
- Pause (Is this the same as feed hold?)
- Coolant/mist/air On-Off
- Spindle On-Off
- Spindle speed Up
- Spindle speed Down
- PDB Open-Close
- Jog speed Up
- Jog speed Down
- Change tool from ATC, in combination with other keys to select which tool number. This could probably also be done through the menu.
- Enable/Disable MPGs

Is there anything I have missed that should be there or anything that shouldn't be there?

I realize that holding the pendant and operating 2 MPGs at the same time can probably be a bit cumbersome, but I'll tackle that when I get there... :)

Any suggestions to how I can make this a very good pendant?

Stig

Seems like nobody have any suggestions...

After looking at some pictures of some pendant and control panels I found, I saw some things that I had missed in my first post, like
- Spindle Dir
- Feedrate Override
- Jog mode
- Zero X/Y/Z/All
- Goto Zero
- Home Axis X/Y/Z/All
- Feedrate Inc (probably use the rotary encoder)
- Feedrate Dec (probably use the rotary encoder)

I also ofund some things to use the LED indicators for, like
- Spindle Dir
- Feedrate Override
- Jog mode On
- Program Run (flash for feed hold)
- PDB Open
- MPG Enabled

By the time I'm finished I'll probably find some more things... :)

Stig

The most used functions on my pendent are run, stop, home X, home Y, home Z, zero X, zero Y, zero Z, feed inc up, feed inc down, feed return to normal, spindle speed up, down.
coolant is controlled by G code.

Thank you.

Do you have a MPG on your pendant? It seems like most pendants with MPG also have Jog/Step selectors.

As long as I put the buttons fairly sensible, it doesn't really matter what I put on them, as that would only be programming and a new layout anyway... :)

I have the ShuttleRU. It has a pseudo mpg, (doesn't really created pulses, but simulates them via software).
One thing that I implemented in the plugin was the concept of a double click as well as a shift button. Certain things, like homing, I didn't want to accidentally select while the cutter was down! For those, I had to hold down my "shift" button, and then double press on the assigned button.
In general, any function that would cause automatic movement I made this way.

I'm also planning to use a kind of shift button, e.g for Home or Zero. Click Home/Zero and then axis. I guess requiring double-click would make it even safer. I'll also make sure some buttons are disabled while the spindle is running or axis moving, like PDB Open... :)