XHC HB04 Pendant Setup Tips?

[CL_MotoTech]

I keep having issues, especially so in Mach 3. If I hit a limit switch I can't get the machine to move until I jog via the flyout buttons on the screenset with the mouse. I can reset the stop via the reset button on the pendant, but the hand wheel will not move any of the axis'. After using the mouse on any axis via the GUI, even for just a short move, the pendant works again. I only can jog at whatever speed the machine is set to, so nothing variable (slow hand wheel movements don't mean slow table movements, fast hand wheel doesn't mean fast tables), which makes probing tricky. In UCCNC it's a little better as it drives via steps, though the motion is very jerky. Before switching to the UC300 this pendant was much easier to use. I have looked in the UCCNC manual, but there's no info about the plugin despite it being included in the install. The XHC plugin for Mach still obviously works, but it just doesn't work the same as it used to and in some cases seems buggy. I also have to unplug and plug back in the USB dongle if I switch from Mach to UCCNC or the other way around, if I don't the pendant doesn't work at all. I feel like I'm missing something here and any advice would be appreciated. I'm thinking I'm going to have to buy a Vista CNC pendant as the XHC one just isn't really useable as is, then again, I could be way off on my setup and I'd rather not blow $300 if I don't have to. Please advise.

[cncdrive]

Hi,

You know that the XHC pendant is not our product and that the Mach3 plugin has nothing to do with us.
The only thing what we did is we wrote a plugin for the pendant for the UCCNC. The Mach3 plugin was not written by us, it was written by somebody else, probably by the manufacturer of the pendant.
In the UCCNC you can adjust the pendant with some parameters so you can adjust the jerkyness out for different settings.

It is not possible that the pendant works different in Mach3 after you used it with the UCCNC and plugged it out and back in, because there is no permanent writable memory (EEPROM, FLash) in the pendant which the plugin could write which means that the UCCNC plugin can't change anything permamently in the pendant. In other words we can't make the pendant to remember anything which our plugin do. The pendant after unplugged and plugged back should work the same as before. The UCCNC plugin can have no influence on how it works in Mach3 after the unplugging and plugging back in.

We can check what exactly happening to the pendant when switching from UCCNC to Mach3 and vice versa when not unplugging the pendant, there might be problems with that, but we will need some time to check this out. But again if you unplugging the pendant it will not remember anything, the plugin can't write anything permamently, so it has to work the same as it worked before after unplugging and replugging.

The Vista CNC pendant is definately a much better pendant, because the manufacturer wrote all plugins and they are supporting their customers not like how it is with these chinese pendants.

We will also have a new pendant, but it will probably take some time for us to finish with the production and to prepare for sales. I've attached a picture anyways of how the prototype looks.
If you click the picture it rotates the pedant around 360°. It is an animated gif picture, but you have to click the picture for that...

[CL_MotoTech]

I am aware that it isn't your product. However, the product did work very well with ESS and now with the UC300eth it does not. The Mach3 plugin didn't change, the BOB didn't change, the steppers didn't change, nor did the drivers, or the PC. Though I did switch from ESS to UC300eth. So that's why I asked for tips here, it would seem to me that maybe you guys could have some sage advice on where I am going wrong. Perhaps I should delete the plugin from Mach and reinstall?

The necessity to plug in/unplug the USB dongle seems to be a driver issue. It's not a huge hassle, but I figured I would let you know.

[cncdrive]

OK, I was just not sure if you are aware of that...

Unfortunately I do not know why it works different with different motion controllers, because it is Mach3 who calculates the motion, it just sends motion data to the motion controller.
I don't think that deleting the plugin and reinstalling it will make any difference, because if the file was broken in any ways it would simply not run.
What you should check in my opinion is the pendant tuning in Mach3 (Function CFG's-Calibrate pendant), that influances how "sensitive" the pendant is and so then Mach3 calculates the movements based on those tuning values.

The plug/unplug problem when switching Mach3 to UCCNC and vice versa could be a UCCNC plugin problem, I mean it is possible that the communication is not closed properly or something like that, but it is just a guess from me now, we will have to check it out to see.

It is possibly our motion controller plugin problem if the jog wheel is not moving the axes until you jog on the screen, but this is again just a guess now, will check this too.

[CL_MotoTech]

I can't recall, but maybe the ESS plugin controlled the MPG movement in some fashion instead of the native Mach 3 tuning and that is where I have gone wrong. I will investigate that.

I appreciate your help, thank you.

[cncdrive]

Yes, that is possible, because mostly motion controller manufacturers put lots of the settings on their plugin pages and so then you can set those things there instead of in the standard place in Mach3.
One of our goals was always that we tried to keep everything what was possible in their original places and always tried to keep things simple for the user and so most of the things with our motion controllers are setable the same way and at the same places where they were originally when LPT port was used. This made migration from LPT ports easy for Mach3 users and probably this is one reason why our UC100 controller got so popular at that time, because moving to the UC100 from a LPT port could be easily done without the hassle of doing lots of new settings.

[CL_MotoTech]

I actually much prefer how you guys went about it. I'll also say that the UCCNC setup is gloriously upfront. I had everything running pretty nicely within about a half hour. I need some work on tuning my motion, but I'll get there.

That said, moving from plugin based adjustments for Mach3 back to Mach3 native adjustments took some getting used to but only because I was used to the ESS plugin after having used it for many years. I'm sure after some messing around it will all come back to me.