Re: Who has a pendant that works with their CNC Router Parts & ESS
The Shuttle on the PP controlled Tormach is ok, but I preferr the VistaCNC pendants I have on my Mach controlled Speedmaster mills. I used the Chinese ones everybody tries for a while, and managed to wear out one of the bubble switches on one. I also found them a little blocky or steppy to use. I was constantly clicking through the step size modes and back to the two jog mode. Also, I didn't like the mate up between the step size and the displayed step size on the controller. I liked the .0001 scale for final height adjustment on a tool setter. It displayed the same on .001 and .0001. Very annoying. Also the display was sometimes slow to respond and on cutting really large coed files the pendant was erratic. Cost me two tool height setters and a couple end mills.. More than the difference to upgrade them all to VistaCNC pendants.
I did have one issue with a VistaCNC pendant. A long time ago on a 32 bit single processor XP box it would sometimes lose communication with Mach. Mach would still work, but the pendant wouldn't. The only way to restore communication was to restart Mach.
Another alternative if you are running Mach 3 (not sure if there is a driver for Mach 4) is an OEM Xbox 360 game controller. I ran one for a year and it was ok, but the LCD screen on the Vista CNC controller makes it handier than the XBOX controller. I only experienced this on one machine, but its worth noting. Sometimes on shutdown it would slowly creep the head down into a slow speed crash into the table. An E-Stop before shutting down would eliminate that problem.
Bob La Londe
http://www.YumaBassMan.com