- Joined
- Apr 4, 2013
- Messages
- 884
Good part of the day,
I'm realizing that Near-Zero Warning function is more broken that I though it was, so let me try to clarify how it *should* work, and what can go wrong.
So the idea is that you can turn it on (on one or more axis output) and as the readout approaches "0". This is very useful when threading on the lathe (internal threading lost the "horror" factor with it for me.
The intended functionality is as follows:
TouchDRO is designed with "working towards zero" philosophy. I.e you would pre-set a dimension and start machining towards zero. As you get closer, the DRO starts beeping with increasing speed. It has five thresholds: 0.25", 0.1", 0.01", 0.005" and 0.001". When the position crosses 0.25", the beep starts slowly and increases to solid tone at 0.001". At least that's the theory.
In practice it doesn't seem to work this way. Unfortunately this has been very hard to track down, since it works reliably on the tablets/phones/chromebook I use for testing (about 15 different makes and models). From what I've gathered, there are two issues:
1. (Simple and common) - Android system uses multiple sound streams: Media, Notification, Alarm, etc. Near-Zero warning use the Notification stream, and if the volume is turned down, you will hear no sound. To fix this, go to the "Sound" settings on your device and increase the volume for "Notifications". This should be all that's needed
2. (Not fixable but uncommon) - TouchDRO uses standard tone generator library that (in theory) is a part of standard Android OS. it's used for things like dial tones, CDMA network tones, etc. According to Google's docs every device should come with. Since it's much more efficient than playing MP3 files, it's the preferred method of making sounds. For some reason, the library is either broken or missing on some tablets. So far only a handful of people ran into this, and the tablets have been non-name Chinese tablets and one model of Asus tablet.
Now, with all this said, I'm rewriting this for V3 (actually spent good chunk of last weekend on it). The functionality will be a bit more refined:
1. Instead of fixed thresholds, there will be a configurable setting for the "start" reading that will default to 0.25" but will be settable from min of 0.1" to as far as you want.
2. The beeps will speed up proportionally the closer you get to 0, will go to solid tone at 0.001", and will chime and stop at 0".
3. If the axis stops moving, the beeps will stop after 1 second and will resume if the motion starts towards 0".
The new implementation is open to feedback, constructive criticism (i'm not fully done with it yet), so please let me know if something feels wrong.
Thank you
Yuriy
I'm realizing that Near-Zero Warning function is more broken that I though it was, so let me try to clarify how it *should* work, and what can go wrong.
So the idea is that you can turn it on (on one or more axis output) and as the readout approaches "0". This is very useful when threading on the lathe (internal threading lost the "horror" factor with it for me.
The intended functionality is as follows:
TouchDRO is designed with "working towards zero" philosophy. I.e you would pre-set a dimension and start machining towards zero. As you get closer, the DRO starts beeping with increasing speed. It has five thresholds: 0.25", 0.1", 0.01", 0.005" and 0.001". When the position crosses 0.25", the beep starts slowly and increases to solid tone at 0.001". At least that's the theory.
In practice it doesn't seem to work this way. Unfortunately this has been very hard to track down, since it works reliably on the tablets/phones/chromebook I use for testing (about 15 different makes and models). From what I've gathered, there are two issues:
1. (Simple and common) - Android system uses multiple sound streams: Media, Notification, Alarm, etc. Near-Zero warning use the Notification stream, and if the volume is turned down, you will hear no sound. To fix this, go to the "Sound" settings on your device and increase the volume for "Notifications". This should be all that's needed
2. (Not fixable but uncommon) - TouchDRO uses standard tone generator library that (in theory) is a part of standard Android OS. it's used for things like dial tones, CDMA network tones, etc. According to Google's docs every device should come with. Since it's much more efficient than playing MP3 files, it's the preferred method of making sounds. For some reason, the library is either broken or missing on some tablets. So far only a handful of people ran into this, and the tablets have been non-name Chinese tablets and one model of Asus tablet.
Now, with all this said, I'm rewriting this for V3 (actually spent good chunk of last weekend on it). The functionality will be a bit more refined:
1. Instead of fixed thresholds, there will be a configurable setting for the "start" reading that will default to 0.25" but will be settable from min of 0.1" to as far as you want.
2. The beeps will speed up proportionally the closer you get to 0, will go to solid tone at 0.001", and will chime and stop at 0".
3. If the axis stops moving, the beeps will stop after 1 second and will resume if the motion starts towards 0".
The new implementation is open to feedback, constructive criticism (i'm not fully done with it yet), so please let me know if something feels wrong.
Thank you
Yuriy
