Wish List Features...

J

JFL4066

H-M Supporter - Gold Member
H-M Supporter Gold Member
Joined
Nov 22, 2017
Messages
150
Hi Yuriy,

I have about 300 hours use on the Touch DRO in the past 2 months. Maybe it's just me but it would be great to have the decimal places after the thousandths underlined and a slightly smaller font light gray in color. Car odometer style if you will.
Also when viewing the axis feed rate it is not a stable value. Could the sample rate be reduced or such to get it more stable. Good feature though.
 
Wow, I'm jealous. I think I had less than 300 in the shop in the last year :(
It's an interesting idea (regarding the digit size) - I haven't thought about this before.
I agree about the feed rate. I changed it a bit (current version recalculates it each time the DRO sends the position; new version runs a timer and recalculates it at fixed intervals). This made it a bit more stable, but still pretty annoyingly jittery, so I'm still playing with it.
 
LOL. I'm probably more than a hobby machinist. I really like your application and will send you suggestions as I use it.
 
Hi Yuriy,

I have been using the DRO quite a bit and have some more suggestions....
  1. The ability to re-order the workspace points. When milling a contour you obviously follow the points in order. I sometimes create the points out of order. It would be great to touch and hold a point and drag it up or down in the list. Or if name is a preceding number, reorder by number.
  2. The ability to change the "zone distance" of the auto snap-to function in the preview mode. When points are close together (less than 0.500") the function will not snap to the next point.
  3. The ability to export and import workspaces. This would allow us to create and share complicated contours or hole patterns and save them.
  4. Mentioned before - odometer style tenths numbers. Black text on white background.
Can't wait for the new version.
~John
 
John,
Thank you for the suggestions.
#1 and #2 are in the works (#1 a bit different, i.e. no drag and drop, but should get you the functionality)
#3 will likely be in the "Plus" version of the app (I'm considering having a paid version with some "advanced" and "convenience" features), so that will come later. There are complications with Android and local storage that i need to iron out
#4 I tried adding "light" theme (black on white) but it ended up being a giant amount of work. If I get bored, I might do it, but given how much other stuff there is to do, I'm probably not going to touch that for a long time. Same with the smaller buttons. It's more doable, but will require a lot of UI changes to keep the whole thing aligned. I will add this to the "nice to haves", but no promises.

I'm slowly but steadily chugging along with the new version. There are still a few major areas that I haven't finished, namely saved tool management, USB connectivity and preference bank switching.

Regards
Yuriy
 
I have been using the original version so I don't know if these issues have been addressed on later versions.I have a 3 axis install on a Grizzly G0602 lathe. I had a problem with EMC issues that was ultimately solved by adding bypass capacitors to the iGaging read heads. I used to have a connection problem where I would lose my connection and have to reboot. That was solved by turning the WiFi connection off on my tablet (RCA Voyager). I have an issue where the screen would stop updating every so often. It lasts about a second and I don't lose any counts. I am assuming that this is an interrupt issue. It isn't critical to use but it is annoying in that if I am turning or facing to an endpoint and I lose the signal, I could overshoot my stopping point.
 
Yuriy,

#4 How about just making the tenths digit a different color? White? :)

A paid plus version would be fine with me. Added features that would put Touch DRO beyond a standard DRO would be a huge benefit.

Thanks for all of the great work!

~John
 
After setting it up on my lathe a few suggestions to make the software much more powerful for a lathe.

1. For Lathe use, drop the X-Z. Use X-Y like milling ( why because your workspace uses X-Y) For tool offsets as well Z is useless in workspace for a lathe. Having ability for X-Y tool offset is all that's needed on a lathe.

A powerful feature is the ability to make and store lathe cutting profiles using X-Y in workspace.

Storing points in the workspace you just pullup the workspace and touch tool off and zero and you have your cutting profile in a graphic not like a Chinese digital readout.

Easy repeat turning of parts, watch the green position marker and line it up with the stored points and cut away no blue print needed.

Blind internal cutting easy as well if you want a .050 wall thickness re-zero .050 out on carriage and .050 in on cross slide, now your internal profile is set for a .050 wall thickness. NO digital display lathe DRO can do this. The workspace feature makes this possible!

I don't think this would require much in the software to implement this.


Now implementing this might be a more difficult but very possible.
2. W axis, adding a Degree input for compound angle to adjust X-Y position based on W position vs angle set would top this off as perfected no improvements possible after that for lathe use. Having a option to enable/disable this in software on screen to reduce processing load. This would be un touchable no other DRO setup would come close.

Thanks !
 
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