[lucas]

Just joined cnczone and this is my first post.

For those of you who want a manual step/dir control:
I made one using only one potentiometer, it was intended to test controllers and perform basic stepper motor positioning.
The circuit uses two 8 pin chips: a 555 pulse generater and LM393.
Operation is very simple: center position of the potentiometer is stop, turning the pot slightly to the left will run the motor at slow speed, turning further increases the speed.
Turning the pot from the center to the right does the same but the motor runs in the other direction.

I have a schematic but it needs polishing before upload, any interest?

[mvaughn]

I'm interested. This sounds like a handy device.

[dwwright]

I don't know if Mach2 has any keyboard jog control, but I had a post on some free software that does joystick to keyboard mapping. The post is here:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7913

[lucas]

Schematic is here:
http://users.skynet.be/sky50985/CNC/stepctrl.pdf

The timing ranges from approx. 10Hz to 1kHz but can be modified by changing the value of the 1µ cap.

I also have a PCB layout but that needs polishing too...
Will try to do that this evening.

Questions and suggestions for improvement are welcome.