It's been a year or so since I got my mill going and most of the functions I use on on the hand held MPG so I never used any external push buttons lick Cycle start feed hold etc. Now I have a lathe running on Mach3 and it does have some external buttons, cycle start feed hold, coolant on/off and I think I would like to use them. I do have some inputs left on my breakout board from vital systems DSPMC that I can use but don't have a clue how to emulate the cycle start externally. I also have PoKeys 55 USB board that I purchased about a year ago and don't have a clue what to do with that, my question is, does anybody know of any video's out there that I can watch or step by step instruction.
Thanks Ray.

For simple buttons like Star, Hold, Stop etc you can just assign the port and pin number to an OEM trigger on the Inputs page. Once you have done that go to System Hotkeys (from Config menu) and enter the OEM code for the function next to the OEM trigger you have the inputs assigned to.
You will find the OEM code list up at the top of the forum or on the Wiki.
Hood

Thanks hood, so because I'm using DSPMC  and my inputs are 24vdc to my breakout board do I still use the 24v input from my push buttons? i know it's a dumb question, god help me if I have to use the PoKeys..

It's been over a year and I think the penny has just dropped. I found it, system hot key setup and external triggers.

Yes if you are connecting to the 24v of the DSPMC then your buttons will have to have 24v on them.
If you use the Pokeys for some buttons then you will have to have 5v on those.
Hood

The push buttons are momentary, can't seem to find the code for spindle cw and spindle ccw.
Ray.

There isnt as far as I remember, you have spindle toggle only and that will only do M3 and not M4.
One option is to use a Brain to look at the OEM trigger and then turn on a User defined LED and then have the macropump do the M3  or M4 depending which user LED is lit. Other option which makes it a bit cleaner is to use Scott Schaefers MachMad plugin, you tell it to look at the input and then call a macro up to do what you want.
Last option is to use an input rather than an oemtrigger and have the macropump look for the Inputs LED and call a M3 or M4 depending on which LED is seen.
Hood

Just my luck, simple thing like cw/ccw spindle and I get into a can of worms, I guess I'm not using those buttons. Did find cw and rest THC height and ccw toggle, couldn't find spindle stop, at least that would have been usefull.

Dont think CCW toggle works, or at least when I tested it a while back it didnt.
Can help you get the buttons working if you want but up to you, I have just settled for spindle toggle at the moment on my machines and using MDI if I require a M4.
Hood

Thanks Hood I just might take you up on that but right now I need to get a few other things done like MPG's and spindle encoder for threading then I will see if I need ccw, I have never seen a CNC without a push buttons for cw & ccw, I would like to try the brains thingy out. So I can't use the momentary push buttons for spindle start or stop.
ray.