Manually controlling the front panel without a keyboard

[sshoham]

Hi all,

In my application I constantly switch the keyboard and the mouse between two computers (using a KVM switch), but would like to continuously be able to control a numeric control on the front panel of one of the computers (running LabView 6.1). Even if I wasn't switching, the use of the keyboard is awkward, since the control needs to be fairly effortless, quick and smooth. After searching a bit for a knob/wheel/dial type of controller, I was only able to find the new PowerMate (Griffin Technology) as a reasonable candidate, and have yet to purchase and try to integrate it. I'm also not sure how it will work with LabView.
Am I overlooking a simple solution?
Anyone have some experience with the Pow
erMate?

many thanks, Shy

[Greg_McKaskle2]

> In my application I constantly switch the keyboard and the mouse
> between two computers (using a KVM switch), but would like to
> continuously be able to control a numeric control on the front panel
> of one of the computers (running LabView 6.1). Even if I wasn't
> switching, the use of the keyboard is awkward, since the control needs
> to be fairly effortless, quick and smooth. After searching a bit for a
> knob/wheel/dial type of controller, I was only able to find the new
> PowerMate (Griffin Technology) as a reasonable candidate, and have yet
> to purchase and try to integrate it. I'm also not sure how it will
> work with LabView.
> Am I overlooking a simple solution?
> Anyone have some experience with the PowerMate?


I have looked at similar whe
el input devices for use with iMovie and LV.
The one I bought was a more traditional shuttle/jog device which works
OK, but the PowerMate sounds even cooler. Anyway, the one I purchased
was very configurable meaning that different buttons and twists could be
set to different key actions for different apps. For LV, it was
convenient to make the knob do tabs and shift tabs so that you could zip
through controls in a running panel. The one I purchased had an outer
ring and an inner dial. So I set the other one to to up arrow and down
arrow. This meant that for numerics, you could use one ring to tab and
the other to change their value. Didn't do much for strings, but
nothing harmful either. There are also about 14 programmable buttons
that you can set to jump to a particular to control using hot keys, or
to choose a menu item using a keyboard shortcut.

Greg McKaskle

[sshoham]

Greg,

thanks for the response and the useful info. Can you send more specifics about the device you used (just in case)?
I must admit I still don't fully understand the control of a numeric using a dial. Is an arrow activated every time you move in a particular direction, and if so, what determines the rate of "equivalent clicks" in these devices? Seems like the ideal situation would be when you can get an absolute reading of the dial's position. Do you know of any dials with a driver that allows that?

many thanks, Shy

[Greg_McKaskle2]

> thanks for the response and the useful info. Can you send more
> specifics about the device you used (just in case)?
> I must admit I still don't fully understand the control of a numeric
> using a dial. Is an arrow activated every time you move in a
> particular direction, and if so, what determines the rate of
> "equivalent clicks" in these devices? Seems like the ideal situation
> would be when you can get an absolute reading of the dial's position.
> Do you know of any dials with a driver that allows that?


The device is from Contour and it is the ShuttlePro product. Its driver
lets you send keys at a given rate. So you can have it send the key
every N degrees of the inner dial, or the outer ring is spring loaded
and it can be
set to send N keys per second so that you can control the
rate of increment or decrement.

Greg McKaskle

[Jason R]

Another option: Create a simple TCP/IP application in VB or LabVIEW to
control the control.

That is,

Monitor for incoming TCP/IP data in the VI with the control.
If on your other computer you wish to make a change, just use your
little application to do it, and send the value to the main app.

Very cheap to do 😃


Another option 2:
Grab the available Parallel Port digital interface design specifics for
labview. Create yourself a simple binary switch interface. Assign 4
bits for up and 4 bits for down.

That is,

sw1 = -10
sw2 = -1
sw3 = +1
sw4 = +10

Read in the digital input from the parallel port and increment your
control accordingly. You can obviously assign any values you want to
the digital inputs.

Hope this helps guide you a little bit!

Sincerel
y,
Jason G Richmond
Project Engineer II and LVAAD Instructor
VI Engineering
jrichmond@viAenAg.com (domain should be vieng.com (no A's))


sshoham wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> In my application I constantly switch the keyboard and the mouse
> between two computers (using a KVM switch), but would like to
> continuously be able to control a numeric control on the front panel
> of one of the computers (running LabView 6.1). Even if I wasn't
> switching, the use of the keyboard is awkward, since the control needs
> to be fairly effortless, quick and smooth. After searching a bit for a
> knob/wheel/dial type of controller, I was only able to find the new
> PowerMate (Griffin Technology) as a reasonable candidate, and have yet
> to purchase and try to integrate it. I'm also not sure how it will
> work with LabView.
> Am I overlooking a simple solution?
> Anyone have some experience with the PowerMate?
>
> many thanks, Shy

[petra.kroepfl@univie.ac.at]

I´ve bought  four of these PowerMates they are very nice but do anybody know how to cotrol LawView with these PowerMates?

My special problem is: I´ve xyz tables from ISEL and I want to control these tables with the PowerMates via LabView.

I hope it´s clear want I want to do?

Regards

Petra

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

Have you considered touchscreens that interface via USB or serial port?

[petra.kroepfl@univie.ac.at]

Oh, I suppose that I´ve forgot to change the subject...