Centroid OAK board keyboard interface question


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  1. #1
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    Default Centroid OAK board keyboard interface question

    Unto Hey Guys,
    'I am planning on using a Centroid Oak board on my SkyfireCNC mill, which I purposely ordered without any controls/electricals....

    I have sent the kind folks at Centroid the question, but perhaps any of you existing owners might know - is it possible to use your own keyboard/button panel with the Oak board? I am planning on doing a full-size panel of my own design, this would be a big plus.

    Further, I would assume we can map buttons from an external keyboard to the software interface?

    Looking forward to feedback/comments.

    Cheers,
    beano

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    Default Re: Centroid OAK board keyboard interface question

    First, it helps to distinguish between the "keyboard" and the "jog panel" or machine operator panel.

    The keyboard is typically a standard PC keyboard with a USB interface, which talks to the Windows software.

    The jog panel is a purpose-made assembly which talks to the control board, usually through the jog panel port on the Oak (or MPU11 or All-in-one DC) via a proprietary serial protocol.

    For the benefit of low-budget customers, Centroid's software does provide "keyboard jogging" features which allow you to do most of the functions of the jog panel through PC keyboard combinations.

    At the other end of the scale, if you want to build your own machine operator panel with discrete-wired components, Centroid offers a "PLCADD6464" PLC I/O expansion board. This would allow you to wire all your own buttons, switches and LEDs, and have them go to the Oak board via the PLC discrete I/O interface.

    In all three cases, the task of interpreting what button was pushed and what to do about it falls to the PLC logic program, which runs on the Oak board. That PLC program can "see" the PC keyboard presses (forwarded by the CNC11 software); the events on the Centroid jog panel (coming in the jog panel port and mapped as PLC I/O); and events on discrete-wired PLC I/O.

    So if you build your own operator panel and wire it all through a PLCADD6464 board, then you will need to change the PLC program to respond to inputs from those addresses, instead of the usual jog panel addresses. To the extent that your controls work just like the keys on the jog panel (momentary action) you won't need to change the logic at all; just the addresses. If your controls work differently -- if, for example, you replace the INCR/CONT jog mode button and the three jog increment buttons with a 4-position maintained selector switch -- then you will need to write new logic to respond to the new set of rules.

    But in short, yes: you can do that.

    Another option, that probably does not apply to your situation, is to use a programmable USB keypad which allows you to send custom-defined key codes to the Windows PC. If you design these codes to coincide with the combinations for Centroid's built-in keyboard jogging support, then you can simulate the functions of a Centroid jog panel using a comparatively low-cost PC device.



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    Default Re: Centroid OAK board keyboard interface question

    Cheers Mate, appreciate your answer.

    im both a computer- as well as process control automation expert ..... I know PLC's and DCS systems very well....this seems pretty simple and easy doable, happy this is the case.

    ''Yeah, my idea is to do a custom full-house jog-panel without a host of other features, I have sent the fellas at Centroid an email yesterday, hopefully they will get back to me after the weekend.

    have a good one!

    Cheers,
    Beano



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    Default Re: Centroid OAK board keyboard interface question

    I got one of these, the 80-key one, programmed a few buttons via the easy-to-use windows App, it works really well: X-keys Programmable Keyboards

    Quite expensive, but good quality ;/0

    Cheers,
    Beano



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Centroid OAK board keyboard interface question

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