XHC Pendent

[Gene8522]

I have an XHC 4 axis pendent that I was using with Mach3. Has anyone been able to set up the XHC pendent to work with UCCNC?

[Robertspark]

There is a plugin kindly provided by cncdrive which you need to enable via
Configuration > general settings tab + configure plugins button

down the bottom of the list is XHC-HB04 pendant

click "enabled"

restart uccnc

then bring up the plugin window again and click configure to set up the buttons / settings

[Gene8522]

I show that the pendent is connected but I'm not sure what I should set the buttons settings to

[Robertspark]

The buttons accessible from the plugin are just for macros

All of the standard buttons (jog, e-stop etc) are all set within the plugin and cannot be changed.

Does the pendant jog the machine, and toggle the e-stop etc as it should?
{If not maybe you have a different XHC pendant which is not supported.... suggest you post a picture of what you have + its full details other than just XHC (kind of like saying I have a ford and it doesn't start .... which one do you have exactly?}

These two are NOT supported (and probably never ever will be, unless you or someone else writes a plugin)
https://www.dhresource.com/0x0s/f2-albu ... endant.jpg

This one IS supported:
http://image.ofweek.com/uploadfile/comi ... 065089.jpg

If you have one that is not supported, suggest selling it and buying one that is supported.

cncDrive have their own pendant here (100% supported):
http://www.shop.cncdrive.com/index.php?productID=935

Vista offer ones that are compatible with uccnc (and other cnc software)
http://www.vistacnc.com/

I have a USB XHC HB04
http://image.ofweek.com/uploadfile/comi ... 065089.jpg
reason being is it is compatible with MAch3 (now mach4 too) and linuxCNC + other cnc offerings too (planetcnc and a few others should I one day want / need to move away from uccnc {as so many have done with Mach3}

[Gene8522]

wouldn't you know I have the wrong pendent. Mine is the WHB04B-4/6
This one does work well with Mach3.
The main thing I like about this pendent is the ability to change the feed speed of the hand wheel.

[cncdrive]

That pendant will not work with the UCCNC.
We've made a plugin for the chinese HB04, but we see no interest to make the same work for all chinese pendants instead of the manufacturer.
We have this pendant: http://cncdrive.com/UCR201.html
You find the datasheet on the above linked page.

[Robertspark]

wouldn't you know I have the wrong pendent. ....

Murphy's Law: That is the problem these days .... too many on the market IMHO

The chinese (the worlds factory) have missed a trick in my opinion on the pendants....

If they released the info on what it outputs and what it requires in inputs by way of the USB message format / registers then they would open up a whole load of market (kind of like making a tyre (tire) for a specific car but not putting the dimensions on it ..... you've limited your market place drastically....)

Makes me smile with choice and everyone developing their own solution to the same problem all to get a bit smaller share of the market at the cost of people wasting their lives and time in life developing parallel solutions that do the same thing as far as the output is concerned.

...getting old + cynical...

Its different if one manufacturer pays another for a bispoke solution to their application (a gearbox (transmission) for a specific engine), but Mach3 / Artsoft offer nothing to XHC .... XHC developed their own plugin to sell their own pendant to a portion of the market (which is now very fragmented)

I understand cncdrives problem, if they release the message format for their pendants, then it means that someone could clone their pendant and offer a cheaper pendant that is automatically compatible with UCCNC {maybe the flip side of this is cncDrive should have developed a universal USB protocol plugin for UCCNC which would allow pendant manufacturers to provide a pendant which can access one or all of those message addresses / registers within the plugin to allow for jogging + 6-axis display etc ..... then you have developed a market for more uccnc sales potentially where even a hobbyist can fabricate his/her own pendant which is compatible with uccnc via usb {or modbus} protocol without having to do anything uccnc side via c# etc....use an arduino or whatever with a nokia LCD etc a has been done before by the diehard }

I know it can be done, but why keep trying to perfect the wheel .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlvjWpWu99A its round for a reason ... it works move on

Model T fords sold huge numbers, because they sold them cheap, they were simple and they were adaptable in their time against the competition.... and created the desire for everyone to have a car.... Joseph Whitworth developed the Whitworth thread, without it the industrial revolution probably would have happend later and somewhere else given before the whitworth thread there was no standard, everybody made their own thread pitches and shapes.... it wasn't better than anything else ..... it was just a standard where there wasn't one and opened a market for the tools he designed and made to make the standard thread profile he proposed / set....

find a problem, develop a solution to that common problem, and make solution widespread (well known) and as accessible and adaptable as possible to everyone for all solutions
Problem: Hobby cnc / small scale industrical
Solution: UCCNC + UC motion controllers
Hook: make it as accessible and customisable as possible to everyone for all solutions so that the you sell volume of the hardware which is locked to the software..... but make that software fully accessible via many protocol plugins (usb, modbus, rs232.... canbus maybe..... whatever)
other than bob's maybe you don't need to develop any custom hardware (pendants or keypads) or whatever else that may have a limited marketplace

as far as adaptable: why can I not add a custom G-code to uccnc?
Not talking about the standard stuff (G0,1,2,3 etc), talking canned cycles....
eg: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1442

same with turn / rotary axis functions..... if you provide them the market will decide how they want to use them (no need for canned cycles to be created if you allow users to create their own canned g-codes {yes could be done via macro.... what is the difference in a canned cycle nothing if you allow all variable letters to be passed ....}

Bit off topic OK WAY OFF TOPIC (but I know this thread will only be read by a few of the diehard UCCNC thread followers {there is always the delete / edit post button by the moderators}) .... I see a whole load of potential with UCCNC but I'm also seeing some hesitation in making it fully accessible and adaptable to all of late, which was never apparent 2 years ago. A lot of the hard work and selling points are done (synchronous motion G33 etc, lots of synchronous outputs M10.x etc, really great plasma, G41/G42) ..... just not sure if S-curve acceleration is really that important if you've not got rotary axis and CSS / feed per revolution? ...... few of the competition has it, and is it likely to sink time and resource on a new motion planner that is going to be fraught with issues and development bugs potentially where you have something that works and works well (just not finished as good as it could be IMHO)..... and you have time to develop the s-curve planner when there are so many other quick wins to make uccnc an even more desirable product (by being even more adaptable and accessible with more functions) ..... S-curve acceleration would be nice .... but is it essential in the market place UCCNC operates NOW, will it bring instant sales of hardware and software (will we need to buy new uccnc licences? and "traditional" UCCNC is maybe dropped with the old motion planner)

This is an interesting read and has parallels with Mach3 / Mach4 and the potential to loose market share to rivals over a simple issue of loosing your core supporters unnecessarily
https://designandmotion.net/new-post/in ... usion-360/

[cncdrive]

Hi Rob,

Chinese already put out the communication protocol for the HB04 as a .dll that allows people to connect to their device and to use them in their own applications.
The issue is that what they put out is really buggy and useless. So, we sniffed the USB packets and developed our own library for the HB04 pendant.
Since this is lots of work we have no interest in spending so much time again for chinese devices which has no support from the manufacturer and so they would only make our lives harder.

The other issue which you don't know about and I thought to mention is that the HB04 also already has 2 versions and so we don't want to spend our times on fitting the plugin again and again when chinese think that let's make a new pendant and stop producing the old one and let's change things and don't inform anybody, just let them figure out themselves if they want ... we don't want to play this game. We played it once with the HB04 and don't want to do it again with other devices like this other pendant...

We already made it possible in the plugin interface for pendant manufacturers to implement their devices into the UCCNC. VistaCNC already made a plugin which works fine as far as I know. We are not in any type of contact with them, they made the plugin on their own without asking a single question from us.
And there is no need to develop any USB protocol. USB handling is built into Windows. And the protocol depends on how your pendant communicates, it does not depends on the UCCNC. On the UCCNC side you only have to call UCCNC functions, read buttons, write dros or whatever you want to do with your pendant. The communication protocol is not UCCNC dependent.
And you can write whatever protocols and communications with whatever devices you want. If Windows can handle it then it can be made. The UCCNC is not the bottleneck.

Why custom g-code? Why custom M code is not good enough? What would be the difference? And what would be the advantage of typing G instead of M?!

I think we see the last topic different, but that is not an issue.
And competition is fine, we don't want to rule the whole world. We are not Haas and not Fanuc etc.
Everybody has the decision to use the UCCNC or to use something else if he misses something. This is not an issue for us, it is how the world works.
We do our best how we think it is the best and if people like it then we are happy and if some don't then they can use something else which they are maybe happier with. (or finally they can come back and use the UCCNC when they will see the other issues and limitations of other softwares)

[cncdrive]

And my opinion on the topic you linked is also probably different than yours.
As far as I know Inventor was bought out by AutoDesk and I'm sure that their goal of buying it out was to kill the product and maybe to get some source code out of it to use in Fusion 360.
So, I don't think Inventor died because it did not follow the market needs. It died because some businessmen made a good deal out of it.

And this is the one issue I see about the current capitalism model which works on the whole world is that larger companies buying out smaller ones and the reason is often only to kill the company and it's products to kill concurency. And so the large company continues to grow without competition and without the need of further developing things. This leads to slower technical development of that market and a monopoly situation. Because owners of a new small company will likely take a million dollar offer for their company when their company is small and then will just move on.
And that will be the end of the "Consumer" world, because then that company will no more have any concurency, everybody will work for them and so they can do whatever they want with the consumer, with the people, because they will have all the money and power to do it. And by the way do you know how it is called when one big organisation rules all the people and has all the goodies? It is called Socialism.

If we deeply think into this then finally there will be only one huge company in the world. It's like when you make a chicken soup and put a little amount of fat into it and lots of nice fleck of fat will shine on the top of the soup and you can add more and more fat and the more and more the flecks will appear, but finally when you added too much fat then they will grow into one large fleck of fat.

[Robertspark]

Anyone asks me about CNC router, milling or plasma I recommend uccnc.... It's just turning / rotary applications I'm lost and need to suggest others.

The people I communicate with are hobby or light commercial users obviously (one man bands)

M / G for canned cycles... No big difference really, except m-codes are restricted on what variables you can pass (cannot use letters x,y,z,a,b,c,s,f,m.... If you had access to create a gcode then all the letters become available and it is easy to think in passing normal parameters X,y,z etc....)

The market is too diversified to rule the market which for uccnc is not in the market share of Hass, fanuc or mazak etc. But it has the potential to continue to grow market share by showing it is adaptable and accessible.

With regards to developing a usb protocol. I know users can create a plugin, what I was on about was cncdrive developing a plugin that offers a standard protocol. I know vistacnc developed their own plugin for uccnc to sell their own motion controller, but they are in the same boat as cncdrives motion controller and everyone else in the market where no one wants to give out their plugins protocol in case someone goes and creates a similar device that can then emulate their device and use their plugin.

What I am suggesting is maybe the CNC applicate needs to offer a standard usb plugin (usb for hid is a standard protocol with vid and pid). In a simple analogy usb is the thread.... You are providing the nut and telling everybody the size of the nut.... They will make the bolt to fit that nut... Everyone can make the same bolt and it will seamlessly fit that nut.

At the moment we have uccnc which is fully accessible via plugin, but first you need to drill your own hole on the side of the case and weld your own nut on.... Guess what everyone is using a different size nut and hole....

Maybe it's because I'm not a programmer and just a dabbler in everything (jack of all trades.... Master of one! (Yes I hold a master's degree... So I AM a master of 1 and NOT none... Got to be worth the fees to be able to say that from time to time)

If something is impossible it cannot be done any way at all, that is fine (physics is physics), otherwise it is simply a issue of cost, time, or resource which is just a limitation of present perspective and circumstance.