Using external keypad and and keymapping them for cnc12

[mael]

Hey guys,

Buying an Xkeys is not practical from where im from. It would cost 3-4x the cost of the keys just to ship and after tax.

I was wondering if any of you have experience with using an external usb keypad and binding them using some software to be used in conjunction with cnc12.

Iv seen the video where an xbox controller is used but if possible i would rather use a keypad. I wont need a whole lot of buttons anyway. By the way, the keyboard im using doesnt have a keypad built in it (space saving) so i gues I wouldnt have redundancy for jkeypad I gues?

Thanks

[DICKEYBIRD]

This one works well for me: viewtopic.php?f=60&t=1322&p=7506&hilit=usb#p7506

[martyscncgarage]

Hey guys,

Buying an Xkeys is not practical from where im from. It would cost 3-4x the cost of the keys just to ship and after tax.

I was wondering if any of you have experience with using an external usb keypad and binding them using some software to be used in conjunction with cnc12.

Iv seen the video where an xbox controller is used but if possible i would rather use a keypad. I wont need a whole lot of buttons anyway. By the way, the keyboard im using doesnt have a keypad built in it (space saving) so i gues I wouldnt have redundancy for jkeypad I gues?

Thanks

Most any device that is a keyboard emulator should work. There are keyboard shortcuts for most every feature in the Centroid software. In fact, originally if you were on a budget, you could control the software with just a keyboard.
Press Alt-J, that screen will give you all the keyboard short cuts.

Contour Shuttle Express is now supported. Can you get that where you are from? Its nice to have the wheel to incrementally jog the axis
Marty

[mael]

Hey Marty

Im from the Philippines so all the good stuff are far from where I am. Cost just skyrockets to bring stuff in. I had to pay maybe about $140 on top of the acorn cost just for shipping and taxes. (well worth it)

Anyway, im looking into “hidmacros” a keyboard emulator. Looks promising. Will look into it after when i get time to grt back to work on my machine.

[legacytorch]

I too didn't want to shell out for the xkeys and I don't think a MPG really fits my needs. So I started to experiment with a simple wireless keypad. I just bought the cheapest wireless number pad on Amazon, printed some labels and glued them on. I tried different key remapping software but eventually settled on HID macros http://www.hidmacros.eu/download.php. I liked it the most because it allows separate control of individual keyboards. Other software made universal changes that would affect my main keyboard which I also use for CAD drawing and didn't want to loose my regular numpad. Additionally, it allowed key combinations like "alt+s", and others were single key press only. I also prefer it to the newer luaMacros from the same site, I just couldn't make that one work. The only problem I ran into was that I am not able to remap the numlock key, which is very frustrating . I have since found lots of keypads available that do not have numlock and will be ordering one of them. For the next version I will look to do something more durable with the labels, but in the meantime I am quite satisfied with how this first "prototype" turned out.

[martyscncgarage]

I too didn't want to shell out for the xkeys and I don't think a MPG really fits my needs. So I started to experiment with a simple wireless keypad. I just bought the cheapest wireless number pad on Amazon, printed some labels and glued them on. I tried different key remapping software but eventually settled on HID macros http://www.hidmacros.eu/download.php. I liked it the most because it allows separate control of individual keyboards. Other software made universal changes that would affect my main keyboard which I also use for CAD drawing and didn't want to loose my regular numpad. Additionally, it allowed key combinations like "alt+s", and others were single key press only. I also prefer it to the newer luaMacros from the same site, I just couldn't make that one work. The only problem I ran into was that I am not able to remap the numlock key, which is very frustrating . I have since found lots of keypads available that do not have numlock and will be ordering one of them. For the next version I will look to do something more durable with the labels, but in the meantime I am quite satisfied with how this first "prototype" turned out.

CNC12 uses Hot Keys, and key combinations so any thing that can generate them will work.
XKEYS does it all using their utilitiy.
What ever works is all that matters.

Wireless MPG is the way to go in my opinion.

[legacytorch]

What ever works is all that matters.

Yes, but I found something specific that does in fact work and work well. I tried a lot of different software before arriving at HIDmacros. Many seemed, buggy or did not have the features needed.

Wireless MPG is the way to go in my opinion.

I'm sure that MPGs are great for many applications. For my application (plasma table) I think that I would find the two step toggling between axes to be a frustration. I have been using a remapped xbox controller to this point. It has been working well but it is definitely not intuitive to just pickup and use. I think I would still prefer it to the MPG though because of the simultaneous control of x, y and z.

Different strokes