Video Monitor Setup for Mill Head

[evotodi]

I have finally gotten my new mill up and running and though I would share an addition that I have found very useful.
I mounted two ebay waterproof endoscopes to the mill head 90 degrees apart and about 45 degrees angled tward the cutter. Then connected them to a seperate mini-pc running ubuntu 14.04 linux, on which I wrote a script that upon boot starts up each camera and positions it on the screen. I found that each camera has to have its own usb bus if you want to view them at the same time. In my case I just added a usb pci card and plugged the second camera into it. I also wrote a python program with gui to that communicates to a arduino uno to control the lights, function overrides, and monitor temps and flows. I haven't got the temp and flow sensors hooked up yet but the buttons to control the lights, vac, air, and coolant work.

Here is a youtube video of the system in action.


If anyone is interested I'll be more than happy to post some more details and code.

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[pippin88]

That is awesome! Removes the problem of vision with dust skirts.

Can you link to which one exactly you used? I'd be looking at using only one PC running LinuxCNC.

[evotodi]

pippin88 the cams came from here on ebay and are 7 meters.
My poor mach3 computer could not handle the 2 video feeds, python script, and mach3 running 200k+ lines of gcode at the same time, so they got moved to the second computer. And as an added benifit I can surf the web while milling and not worry about crashing the mach3 computer. Attached it the commented script I use to start the and move the video windows.

[nlancaster]

Brilliant!!

[alan_3301]

Very nice, good idea.

Is that a burnishing bit you are using to burn what is already carved?

just wondering. if that is the cutting action, you need to bump the feedrate way up, to save your bits, and keep from burning your work.

[wizard]

cool!

It is amazing how small these cameras have become but yet still deliver a quality image. Back when I first started working in automation we had some grinders that had TV cameras mounted on them due the extremely tiny parts to be machined. These cameras still had tubes in them and where over a foot long and fairly heavy. Today they have been replaced with little CCD cameras that frankly can't get any smaller using the standard video connectors that are on them. We went for cubic feet to cubic inches, from pounds to ounces.

[mcphill]

That's awesome!

Any chance you can wrap that all up in a kit that a Linux-newbie could install and run "without technical headaches"? "Just" the software you made with links to the proper hardware would be useful as an option... It's the "throw this together in Python and make a GUI" part that I won't be able to handle...

[evotodi]

Sorry about the slow reply... work can be consuming sometimes.

alan_3301: The feed rate was me being scared. My old mill would not go over about 12ipm without severe deflection. So i was used to the slow pace and burning up cutters and lots of sanding however my new mill will cut up to 60ipm without deflection and I have since started using proper feed rates. It is amazing how being able to cut at the proper speed for the material makes the finish so much cleaner.

wizard: It is amazing the size the CCDs have become. The ones I am using are large compared to some.

[evotodi]

Wrap it all up in a kit... not easily. The reason is the hardware is dependent on your needs and the GUI is dependent on the hardware.

The GUI I wrote is for telemetry from my mill and manual control for some of the functions (vac, air, coolant lights etc...). It is a bit of overkill but I like engineering and design, so well overkill.

Manual control is done by the board in the bottom left of the pic. That board is controlled by the Arduino that is not pictured. The Arduino is controlled serially from the python script.

The video portion is easily setup since it is just a script calling open source software. I would be more than happy to help you with the coding. The cameras link is in the OP and the script is in post 3.

The python script, GUI, wiring, Arduino code, and Arduino interface is not easily packaged however I would be more than happy to help you with the design and coding.
What flavor of Linux are you using? Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, Cent-OS, Slax
What kind of mill do you have?

[pippin88]

How do you find the frame rate / refresh rate?

I just received my USB camera. I bought one advertised as 1280x720, though it seems it's only 640x480 using the drivers windows 7 automatically installs (I don't have a CD drive to use the supplied drivers).

There is a lot of motion blur (though again I'm not using the drivers / software on the disc that came with it).

Edit: Frame rate is much better (30FPS rather than 10FPS) when there is more light available - I'll need an LED ring.

[evotodi]

Using linux and guvcview it it under settings. Will allow you to change refresh and turn on stats. I found that I had to run the cams at 320 to get the best video 640 was fine with just one cam plugged in.