Shopbot Software Wish

[Tim Lucas]

I would like to see some form of this added to the Shopbot software and would also like to here comments and suggestions.

I would like the software could notify me when I need to change bits, maybe through an App or email

I have a two story shop and my bot is downstairs - I am up stairs working when running the bot and listening to it but sometimes its hard to tell when it is doing the final cut or just sitting there waiting on me. I know the technology is there but not sure how much trouble it would be to create an App to do notifications.

What do you think?:confused:

Tim

[GlenP]

Hey there. A idea to help your situation now would be to get either a baby monitor that has video or a camera to monitor or smart phone or tablet??

[srwtlc]

First thing that comes to mind is to utilize one of the many available outputs. You could use the add-on relay board or make one up of your own and when it's time to change bits, have the desired output be switched on which would then trigger a relay that would turn on a light, a buzzer, or a strobe light.

You could make SB3 play a .wav file when it's time to make a tool change and have a speaker where you are or in several locations.

You could/should be able to have SB3 start an external program with the 'SHELL' command (see Programming Handbook).

Back to the outputs, you could have an output trigger an Arduino or similar setup to send a notification to your phone.

This would require you to modify the manual tool change files to turn on/off the desired outputs.

[donek]

Shopbot allows you to incorporate visual basic into your files. You also have up to 100 custom cut files you can use to run repetitive operations or call a set of commands easily. The shell command allows you to execute external programs and files. Everything you are asking for is possible with a bit of creativity and some programming knowledge. I'll give you an example of how we do some similar things.

I have a custom file that indexes a variable that counts the number of times a certain type of file is executed. There is another custom file the runs at the beginning of each of those files to check to see how many times that type of file has been executed to determine if it is time to replace the cutter. If the right condition is met, it forces the operator to replace the cutter.

I just did a google search for "send e-mail from command line". There are results for windows operating systems, so it is likely you can accomplish your goal. It looks like the following could be executed from a simple batch file:


Shane M
Serrano
Shane M Oct 8, 2012 at 1:06 PM
Being an old fart, I used telnet from the command line for e-mail testing, assuming the appropriate ports are open. from the DOS box (Command Prompt for the young 'uns) it's;



1. Telnet mail.domain.com 25 (obviously replace mail.domain.com with whichever mail server you want to use.)

2. helo your domain name

3. mail from:your email address

4. rctp to:destination address

5. data

6. Type your message

7. . (type a period and hit enter)

At that point, your email message should be queued and sent. To make it a little clearer, here's an example sending from fred.com to barney.com. Hit "enter after each line.

1. telnet mail.barney.com 25

2. helo fred.com

3. mail from:fred@fred.com

4. rcpt to:brubble@barney.com

5. data Hello Barney. Bowling tonight?

6. .

Hope that makes sense.

[myxpykalix]

Sometimes the simpler answer is the best as in Glens suggestion. This is a video baby monitor and it monitors video and audio and has two way audio. This particular one records on a micro SD card and has a battery so you can undock it and carry it elsewhere. It allows me to pan/tilt the camera. I think it cost around 80 bucks a year or two ago. You can also set it up to view online if you wanted to go far from home.

Something with a visual monitor is way better then just something set up on an audio cue I think. You can see it and hear it when it stops and monitor the cutting noise.

[adrianm]

The ShopBot software has the ability to write values to the Windows Registry (I use a custom interface rather than the ShopBot icons and shortcut keys which makes extensive use of this feature). You could put a line to write a value into the registry and have another program running which looked for that value to change and then send a message. You could also create a file from the SBP file. There are monitoring programs available on the 'net which will take actions based on the existence of a file. Basically many ways of doing it.

I personally use a remote IP camera with audio instead.

[rtfosmoe]

I would like to have more advanced diagnostics with the system. These diagnostics would help solve problems between the computer and embedded controller. Making debugging simpler. Shopbot could also remote into the embedded controller from there shop. Additionally, I would like to have variables stored in flash such as hours use. This could then be read and seen on desktop computer. This would help doing preventive maintenance on the machine. The car industry has all these feature and could be simply implemented in new 32 bit embedded controllers. Lastly, I would like the most of the processing moved off board to the embedded controller this would reduce system crashes .

Rich

[adrianm]

https://github.com/ShopBotTools/

[Tim Lucas]

Thanks to all for your input, think for now I will add a camera but will also look into adding sound wav to tool change