The dust collector in my shop is accessible over the network that I connected my redline HMI with WiFi. Is it possible to have the redline HMI publish to MQTT or make an HTTP request to turn on and off accessories? I saw many people just connect an esp32 to the IO mini board’s output, but I’m hoping I can skip that step since the HMI has the data and network connection already. I’d even be happy with a UDP packet or something totally stateless!
There isn’t, to the best of my knowledge, any functionality in the RealtimeCNC software to do that.
I’d suggest you either move this post to the RealTime Controller / Feature Request category or start a new post there.
You’re more likely to capture the folks at RTCNC’s attention there, though they definitely are active on the forum and pop up every now and then responding to folks posts.
I saw that some people said they use the websocket to get that kind of data. But I hoping one of them sees this and posts the code they use to do it!
Well, I slapped together some yummy slop to solve this or me. I “wrote” this homeassistant integration: GitHub - dgrnbrg/Redline-Onefinity-Homeassistant: integration for redline controller in home assistant, installable with HACS · GitHub
It was guided with a bit of engineering consideration so that it’s not going to do anything horrendous, so that’s a plus. And it gives me several useful pieces of information, such as which IOs are currently active (so if you have dust collection, air assist, etc on IoT devices controlled by home assistant, this will let you automatically turn them on and off). It also exports the camera and ETA information for remote monitoring, as well as any other data I could see.
If the RTCNC folks see this, I’d love it if I could have a remote E-Stop and the ability to trigger the spindle warm-up cycle remotely (maybe just macros in general). It doesn’t make sense to upload & run arbitrary jobs due to the physical setup necessary, but it would be nice to be able to do certain maintenance-esque things remotely or through automation.
You’re definitely deeper in the weeds than I’ve ever gotten. Sounds like some neat work.
If you want to trigger warm up remotely, at least in the short term, you could turn on screen sharing, then just do it remotely? Not elegant, but it works.
I have both regular VNC and VNC over HTTP setup on my HMI and it’s a nice backup, particularly in the past when EMI issues have caused the touch rotation to flip. I now have a script that runs once a minute to correct this (another kludge, but it works and saves restarting the whole HMI)
I’ll check out your HA setup, I just started playing with Home Assistant two months ago and am slowly being pulled into the orbit of that particular black hole of interest.
I had no idea that I could enable VNC for the HMI! That’s very convenient. It certainly would let me trigger warm up in the short term. I do want to be able to control it with Home Assistant though, because I have extensive automation. For example, in my shop, my dust collector is on remote controlled, but also I have multiple ball valve blast gates that are also servo controlled, so that buttons & tools can specifically request a gate to open & automatically shut the others.
So I like the usage of VNC for now, but it would be convenient to have the CNC automatically warm up while I’m heading there without me needing to take any specific action, and I’d prefer not to use VNC as the automation control lol.
I use GRIT Automation to automate my dust collection system.
It’s truly designed for job shops / educational shops with a lot of tools and big systems with access control and user tracking, but it’s not too far out of reach price-wise for a small shop.
The automation is completely unneeded for one guy in a small shop, but is an improvement on the ‘quality of life’ when working. One of those things you’re definitely going to pay for, but it’s money well spent.
I look forward to seeing what else you come up with.
The grit system looks sweet! I 3d printed these gates: 100mm / 4＂ Truncated & Full-Size Ball Valve Type Non-Clog Blast Gate for Workshop Dust Extraction Network by PeterH1500 | Download free STL model | Printables.com with these servo mounts Ball Valve Servo-driven blast gate by Imzadi79 | Download free STL model | Printables.com and custom esphome controllers that synchronize with each other. The controllers have a bunch of physical buttons to control a variety of systems in my shop. I also designed and printed magnetic couplers and adapted every high volume tool to that system. Since my shop’s small, it’s so much nicer to not squeeze around opening and closing blast gates when I have my machines configured in a way that’s tough to walk around. I have a fair bit of experience with hardware, software, and robotics, so I automate and rebuild whenever it makes sense for me in my shop. Now that I’ve got the 1F mostly set up, my next tooling project will be using it to 3d print/aluminum machine an electronic router table lift embedded in my table saw. I am thinking I’ll make it compatible with the XYZ touch probe for zeroing.