Hi to all,
I have a question, Ive been looking at the control panels some have posted on here and of course I am green with envy! Ive got an Advantech touch screen on my little Orac and 2 MPGs controlling X and Z and of course an Estop but what I would like to do is to fit cycle start button, feed hold etc. How do I do this? bear with me as I am a swarf maker, not a sparky! Also I run the spindle via a Jaguar Cub VFD, manually controlled, need to get Mach to run this as well, I haven't got a clue about PWM etc any one offer advice please? Can the VFD be controlled with M03/M04 and is CSS available on Mach? I have built this machine over the last year or so, none of the original Denford hardware is in use, I even replace the steppers!
Cheers to all and seasons greetings to you!
Wayne

You need spare inputs for all buttons you like to have, with the parallel port you are often limited on this score as the first parallel port only has 5 inputs and usually you will have at least 2 of them used with E-Stop and Limits/Home switches. You could add a second port or go with something l;ike a pokleys to get extra Inputs. Extra Parallel Port would allow an extra13 inputs (if you set 2-9 as inputs option), Pokeys would allow up to 55 (I think)

Anyway how its done is simple, connect your switch to the input then go to Ports and Pins, Inputs and set up the OEM Triggers to the port and pin numbers of the switches you have connected. Next Config menu then System Hotkeys and enter the OEM code for the function you want in the OEM trigger box for each trigger you have a switch connected to. You will find a list near the top of the forum or you can look on the wiki to get the same list.
Hood

Oh regarding the VFD, you would need a spindle control board to convert the PWM or Step/Dir to 0 to 10v signal for the VFD control. I have one from Peter Homann and it works very well. It has relays on board to use to switch the VFD on and to reverse it as well.
As for CSS, well it doesnt work correctly in Mach when you are in G95, supposedly it will be sorted in Rev4 of Mach when it comes out.
Hood

Thanks Hood, truly you are a star!