[phomann]

Hi All,

As some will know, I've committed myself to doing a talk at the CNC Convention / BBQ (Melbourne Aus) held on 24th may 2008. Information on this convention can be found at;
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53559

The subject of the talk is Modbus, ModIO and Mach3. It will be a fairly basic introduction to Mach3 and Modbus, using the ModIO as the Modbus slave device. For those that don't know what the ModIO is, information can be found at;

http://homanndesigns.com/store/index...&products_id=4

The is a lot of interest in affordable handheld pendants for Mach3, so I decided to put together one for the talk. I'm tring to use components that can be easily purchased, and put together without too much effort. Some soldering will be required.

The enclosure is quite easy to get hold of at Mouser and I will have them in stock next week, The switches and LEDs I have used are my choice but others could be used.

Attached are some photos of what I've done so far. I created/edited a dxf file for the pendant, used sheetcam http://www.sheetcam.com to convert the dxf to GCode and then used Mach3 to mill it out.

I plan to white a brain(s) to communicate with the Pendant's ModIO. I haven't decided on the functionality of all the switches and indicators, although the potentiometer on the top right will be for feed rate override and the switch and indicator on the top left will be for spindle control.

Cheers,


Peter.