This example is to explain how to hook up the common MPG pendants found on the market today. This example uses an MPG3 pendant and a C22 pendant interface card from CNC4PC connected to a second parallel port plugged into the PCI slot. This example gives you 3 axes with 3 step increments of 0.1, 0.01, 0.001

In your custom.hal file or jog.hal file add the following, making sure you don’t have mux4 or an encoder already in use. If you do just increase the counts and change the reference numbers. More information about mux4 and encoder can be found in the HAL manual or the man page.

See the INI HAL Section of the documentation for more information on adding a HAL file. Jog management pins are provided for each joint and all coordinate letters. This example uses the axis jog pins for jogging in world mode. Machines with non-identity kinematics may need use additional connections for jogging in joint mode.

jog.hal
# Jog Pendant
loadrt encoder num_chan=1
loadrt mux4 count=1
addf encoder.capture-position servo-thread
addf encoder.update-counters base-thread
addf mux4.0 servo-thread

# If your MPG outputs a quadrature signal per click set x4 to 1
# If your MPG puts out 1 pulse per click set x4 to 0
setp encoder.0.x4-mode 0

# For velocity mode, set to 1
# In velocity mode the axis stops when the dial is stopped
# even if that means the commanded motion is not completed,
# For position mode (the default), set to 0
# In position mode the axis will move exactly jog-scale
# units for each count, regardless of how long that might take,
setp axis.x.jog-vel-mode 0
setp axis.y.jog-vel-mode 0
setp axis.z.jog-vel-mode 0

# This sets the scale that will be used based on the input to the mux4
setp mux4.0.in0 0.1
setp mux4.0.in1 0.01
setp mux4.0.in2 0.001

# The inputs to the mux4 component
net scale1 mux4.0.sel0 <= parport.1.pin-09-in
net scale2 mux4.0.sel1 <= parport.1.pin-10-in

# The output from the mux4 is sent to each axis jog scale
net mpg-scale <= mux4.0.out
net mpg-scale => axis.x.jog-scale
net mpg-scale => axis.y.jog-scale
net mpg-scale => axis.z.jog-scale

# The MPG inputs
net mpg-a encoder.0.phase-A <= parport.1.pin-02-in
net mpg-b encoder.0.phase-B <= parport.1.pin-03-in

# The Axis select inputs
net mpg-x axis.x.jog-enable <= parport.1.pin-04-in
net mpg-y axis.y.jog-enable <= parport.1.pin-05-in
net mpg-z axis.z.jog-enable <= parport.1.pin-06-in

# The encoder output counts to the axis. Only the selected axis will move.
net encoder-counts  <= encoder.0.counts
net encoder-counts => axis.x.jog-counts
net encoder-counts => axis.y.jog-counts
net encoder-counts => axis.z.jog-counts

If the machine is capable of high acceleration to smooth out the moves for each click of the MPG use the ilowpass component to limit the acceleration.

jog.hal with ilowpass
loadrt encoder num_chan=1
loadrt mux4 count=1
addf encoder.capture-position servo-thread
addf encoder.update-counters base-thread
addf mux4.0 servo-thread

loadrt ilowpass
addf ilowpass.0 servo-thread

setp ilowpass.0.scale 1000
setp ilowpass.0.gain 0.01

# If your MPG outputs a quadrature signal per click set x4 to 1
# If your MPG puts out 1 pulse per click set x4 to 0
setp encoder.0.x4-mode 0

# For velocity mode, set to 1
# In velocity mode the axis stops when the dial is stopped
# even if that means the commanded motion is not completed,
# For position mode (the default), set to 0
# In position mode the axis will move exactly jog-scale
# units for each count, regardless of how long that might take,
setp axis.x.jog-vel-mode 0
setp axis.y.jog-vel-mode 0
setp axis.z.jog-vel-mode 0

# This sets the scale that will be used based on the input to the mux4
# The scale used here has to be multiplied by the ilowpass scale
setp mux4.0.in0 0.0001
setp mux4.0.in1 0.00001
setp mux4.0.in2 0.000001

# The inputs to the mux4 component
net scale1 mux4.0.sel0 <= parport.1.pin-09-in
net scale2 mux4.0.sel1 <= parport.1.pin-10-in

# The output from encoder counts is sent to ilowpass
net mpg-out ilowpass.0.in <= encoder.0.counts

# The output from the mux4 is sent to each axis jog scale
net mpg-scale <= mux4.0.out
net mpg-scale => axis.x.jog-scale
net mpg-scale => axis.y.jog-scale
net mpg-scale => axis.z.jog-scale

# The MPG inputs
net mpg-a encoder.0.phase-A <= parport.1.pin-02-in
net mpg-b encoder.0.phase-B <= parport.1.pin-03-in

# The Axis select inputs
net mpg-x axis.x.jog-enable <= parport.1.pin-04-in
net mpg-y axis.y.jog-enable <= parport.1.pin-05-in
net mpg-z axis.z.jog-enable <= parport.1.pin-06-in

# The output from the ilowpass is sent to each axis jog count
# Only the selected axis will move.
net encoder-counts  <= ilowpass.0.out
net encoder-counts => axis.x.jog-counts
net encoder-counts => axis.y.jog-counts
net encoder-counts => axis.z.jog-counts