[rooflok]

I need the perfect touchscreen front end, or screen set for my 15" industrial grade 1024 x 768 Planar lcd touch screens that I am incorporating into an enclosure with an industrial PC for use with CNC mills. Sure we can make one of our own, but I assume someone else has already figured this out:

I need the screen set to be a mouse/keyboard/pendant free design.

Hood's doesn't have Jog, or pop up keyboard in it.

I will be sending this out with set up systems, so it cannot be someone else's property. (read tormach)

I will keep this open for about a week, otherwise we will have to make our own.

Winner will be posted on this thread and will receive a Planar 15" LCD touchscreen

Thanks

Andrew Krause

retromation at amertech.net

[neilw20]

I have an ELO touchscreen
http://www.elotouch.com/
which works perfectly with Mach3, or any windows program that has buttons big enough for fat fingers.
Mach3 has a popup pendant, but you need to emulate the TAB key to toggle it.
The Planar screen would work equally well (IMHO)

I have a few external buttons, like cycle start, pause, stop and you could have a hardware key to popup the pendant.

I have tried using the popup pendant, and although it seems nice, you only have to slip off the button (which has NO FEEL) and you can move the wrong axis and do expensive damage to tooling or product.

NOTE: If you use a wired, movable hardware pendant, OHS generally require an emergency stop button for machine approval.

I think the ELO screen is resistive and if machining dusty stuff requires you to lick your fingers or have a damp pad.

Capacitive touch screens (like iPods) work well with dry fingers.

It is nice to run the machine with a touch screen, but you can't beat mechanical buttons for feel, when doing fine jogging and positioning.

Although I am using 100% touch screen I added a cycle start/restart button which is all that is needed during production.

Even if buttons are multifunction programmable, (easy with Mach3) a machine with only a touch screen will be awful, unless it is just pure production, and rarely used for setups, and I am all the time trimming Z as I am (or actually my wife) machining to +/- 1.5 microns, and tool wear tweaking is often on stainless steel/fiberglass laminate we machine.

You can use Mach3 without a mouse, but you need at least a keyboard to able to plugged in when programming and tuning programs. I use a flexible roll up keyboard that you can put in a bucket of water. IMHO you will always need some keyboard access. Just velcro it to the side of the cabinet.

Doing anything with windows without a right mouse button is like having your hands tied behind your back.
I had a track ball and a left button, and ditched it for an opto mouse, which can hang with the keyboard.

For a lot of $$s I can write you a professional touchscreen interface to your specifications.
Sample tiny program attached.
The password to extract the .EXE file is 'john'
The password is used to stop antivirus email software delving where it has no business. At least the ZIP file gets to the user, then his AV software can deal with it, without the email evaporating.