Reference Image Function in TouchDRO Plus

One of the new functions in TouchDRO Plus is the Reference Image overlay in the Graphical View display. In essence, it allows you to set an arbitrary image as the background for a workspace and calibrate it to the machine coordinates. As a result, as you move the spindle/cursor, the features in the image will translate 1:1 to the physical part. There are a few different uses for this functionality. In this post, I will go over the three ways I've used the Image Overlay [so far], and then explain how to set it up on your tablet.

TouchDRO Plus Available for Beta Testing

A few hours ago I published the first build of TouchDRO Plus to the Google Play Store's Beta track. I've been working on it almost full time since March, and most of the core functionality has been in decent state for at least a month. A few of my friends and I have been using it in our shops for a bit over a month, and it seems to be stable enough to inflict on a few more people.

What's Next for TouchDRO

A couple of months ago, after several years of work, I released the new version of TouchDRO - TouchDRO V3. It took much more time than I expected, but overall I'm really happy with the result. The application is much easier to use, has a lot of new functionality, and overall is a big step up from the 7-years old V2.5. Now that the proverbial dust has settled, I'd like to chat about what is next for the project, at least for the foreseeable future.

TouchDRO V3 Finally Out

My first full-time software developer job was at a company called Sunstone Circuits. I was hired to work on various home-grown scripts and programs they used to process orders and manage inventory. At some point I decided that it would be prudent to write a service to import orders from the website into the internal database, so people wouldn't need to print sales orders from the ecommerce system and hand-type them into the scheduling program. When pitching the idea to the higher ups, I told them that I will have "a working proof of concept in less than two weeks". Long story short, it took almost a year and a half, and for at least 3 more years they called me "two weeks Yuriy"...

TouchDRO V3 Almost Ready

For TouchDRO V.3 release status and access to Alpha or Beta testing please refer to the TouchDRO V3 Release Status page.

Over the last several months, I've been concentrating on getting V3 of the TouchDRO application out. Since the start of April, I've been testing it in my garage shop, and at this point, the application is pretty close to being ready for the public "beta" release. There are still a few areas that need a bit of polish, and USB connection support is still not re-implemented; but other than that, it's been pretty solid. A few weeks ago, I started publishing weekly builds to the "closed" testing track in Google Play Store, and several people have been using the application in their shops. If things go as planned, I will start inviting more people over the next week or so.

Tool Offset Memory in TouchDRO V3

Virtually, every modern DRO comes with some flavor of a persistent tool offset memory that lets the user enter offsets for some commonly used tools and recall them as needed. An obvious prerequisite for this feature is the use of indexable tool holders and/or insert tooling, or the offsets will change each time the cutter is re-inserted. In the past, few small shops could afford such tooling. These days, the situation is much better thanks to the availability of inexpensive import insert tooling, end mill holders, and quick change lathe tool posts. As such, the ability to quickly swap tools without needing to re-indicate the surface can be very appealing. Unfortunately, the implementation of saved tool offset memory is outright horrid on most traditional Digital Readouts. Entering and recalling tool offsets involves a complicated sequence of button presses, and at the end, you still need to have a cheat sheet to remember what tool each memory slot holds.

TouchDRO V3 Status Update - December 2021

It's been a while since the last TouchDRO V3 status update, so it's a good time for one. Over the last few months, I had a chance to spend a good amount of time working on the application and have made a lot of progress. The application is now in a state where I can use it on a milling machine and not feel that I'm testing some unfinished beta version; lathe functionality is still a bit behind and will be my main focus next.

TouchDRO V3 Status Update

Last week, I got back to working on the next release of the TouchDRO Android application. There is still much work left before it's fully ready for public Beta testing but until then, the application is my main focus. After my last post, a few people contacted me with concerns about the future of this release since it's been over 4 years since version 2.5 was finished. I can't promise any timelines since this is my side-project but to be more transparent about the progress, I will be posting periodic updates that outline the work that has been completed.

State of The TouchDRO Project

I haven't posted much on the blog over the last year, so the number of emails asking if I'm still alive and/or if the TouchDRO project is dead has been steadily going up. One of the main complaints is that the TouchDRO application, which is currently on Google Play, is four years old. You probably remember my blog post from mid-2017 about some new features that I was working on. Those features are still not released; so, understandably, people are wondering what is happening with the app.

Common iGaging EZ-View DRO Problems

One of the most common problems that TouchDRO users report is jumping of the position redout. There are a few different flavors of this problem, but the common factor is that the position jumps up or down by some amount and then returns to the normal reading. Most common are frequent small jumps by one encoder count; in some rare cases, the scale might rapidly jump up and down by a few encoder counts as well. Much less common are cases where the position momentarily jumps by a random large amount and then returns to the correct reading. These particular problems affect almost exclusively only the iGaging EZ-View and DigiMag "Remote DRO" scales [and their rebranded counterparts]. Since the iGaging display masks this behavior, it leads many TouchDRO users to believe that there is something wrong with their setup.

More Info About New TouchDRO Adapter

After my last post I received a few dozen emails from people with follow-up questions. Some of them were covered in the last post, but I suspect that it was too long and most people mostly skimmed it for the highlights. Rather than answering the same four or five questions in individual emails, let me just post the abbreviated version of the last post in an FAQ format.

Upgraded Adapters for iGaging and Shahe Scales

If you've been following my Facebook page, you probably know that for the last few months I've been working on redesigning the TouchDRO adapters for Shahe and iGaging scales to use the ESP32 microcontroller module. The work started around the end of December of 2020 and at this point, I have gone through a couple of iterations. After a lot of testing and tweaking, I'm finally pretty happy with the performance of the new iGaging scale adapter, and all of the parts appear to finally be in stock; so, I will be finally placing an order for the first production run; Shahe version is still a few weeks out. If things go as planned, I should have the iGaging adapters ready for sale by the end of May. The technical details will be posted on the product page; so, in this post, I want to address some of the questions that came up so far or I anticipate will come up as the adapter is available for sale.

New TouchDRO Adapters Coming Soon

Since the pre-assembled TouchDRO Adapter for Glass DRO scales has been out of stock for over a month, I got a fair number of emails and Facebook messages asking when the board will be in stock. The short answer is that it won't be - I have discontinued that version of the adapter and am replacing it with two new options for Glass/Magnetic scales.

I have been working on a DIY DRO Kit and a more advanced pre assembled DRO adapter for a few months now. My original plan was to order one more batch of the old adapter version and phase it out by the end of the year. Unfortunately, as I was placing my order, I was informed that the assembly has been re-quote using a new formula, and it will now cost two-and-a-half times more. This caught me completely by surprise. The new boards were still not fully ready for the production run, but I didn't want to rush them to avoid dumb mistakes. Now that I have ironed out a few of the remaining issues, I'm finally ready to place the first production order for both adapters. If things go as planned, I will have the first production batch of the two new boards by the end of November and will start shipping them in the beginning of December. Meanwhile, I will take this opportunity to do a quick preview of the new adapters and go over the differences and what my motivations were for the change.

Introducing the New DYI DRO Adapter Kit

From the start, my goal for TouchDRO was to create a do-it-yourself DRO project that would allow people to build a powerful digital readout as inexpensively as possible. To make the project more accessible to people who are not comfortable with electronics, a few years ago I started offering pre-assembled adapter boards for sale.

Since the boards are manufactured in the USA on a relatively small scale, their cost is much higher compared to a scratch-built DIY DRO adapter. The original TouchDRO Mixed Scale DIY Kit was designed to bridge the gap at a price point that was about half-way in between. The kit was very successful from the sales standpoint but created an unexpectedly large support burden.

Because I wasn't able to sustainable deal with it, I pulled the plug on the kit and removed it from the store. Since then, I've been getting a constant trickle of emails asking when the kit will be available or if I have any left for sale. After some "soul searching" I decided to offer a new version of the TouchDRO DIY kit, taking into account lessons learned from the last one.

Dedicated DRO Adapter for Shahe Scales

A few years ago, Shanhe Measurement Instrument Co. introduced a new line of capacitive scales called Shahe "Digital Linear Scale with Remote Square Display" (model numbers 5403-150A/200A, etc.). Thanks to their low price and world-wide availability, the new scales have become a popular choice for budget do-it-yourself DRO builds. Unfortunately, these scales use Mini-USB connectors with pinout different from the iGaging DigiMag, which precluded the use of straight Mini-to-Micro USB adapters to connect them to the TouchDRO Adapter for iGaging scales. To offer a solution that didn't require soldering, I was planning to sell a kit that included the adapter board and a set of USB Mini-B breakout boards that could be connected with ribbon cables. The feedback I received from most of the "Beta" users was that the result was rather awkward; so instead, I decided to design a dedicated adapter board that is pre-wired for Shahe 5403-xxxA scales.

Updated DRO Adapter for iGaging Scales

It's been almost two years since the release of last revision of TouchDRO Adapter for iGaging and Shahe scales. During that time I've learned a lot from the interaction with the customers and received a lot of good feedback about the board. Overall the board has been very well received and has proven to be mostly trouble-free. There were a few minor design decisions that caused some issues or confusion for some people, though. For 2020, I decided to tweak the design a bit to make it even more user-friendly. The new board looks very similar to the previous revision and functions pretty much the same, but has a few updates that will make it more convenient to set up.

Adapter Board for Shahe and iGaging Capacitive DRO Scales

TouchDRO adapter for iGaging and Shahe scales is designed to work with several models of 3V capacitive linear DRO scales manufactured by Sanhe Measuring Instrument Co.,Ltd. and distributed under different brand names. It supports up to four linear scales, directional tachometer and a probe or tool height setter input. The circuit is designed and laid to provide reliable operation of capacitive DRO scales and significantly reduce the effect of shop noise and electrical interference on the scales, compared to a do-it-yourself adapter.

TouchDRO Supports new Chinese DRO Scales

TouchDRO "Black" Adapter Support All of The Shown Digital Readout Scales Now 

A few weeks ago, I finally found some time to experiment with the new Shahe Digital Linear Scales 5403-xxx and 5204-xxx. Electrically these scales are compatible with other 3V capacitive DRO scales such as iGaging DigiMag, EZ-View DRO and iGaging Absolute DRO. This means that adding support for the new scales is a matter of updating the firmware of the TouchDRO adapter for iGaging and Shahe DRO scales. After cursory check of scale protocol, I was expecting this to be a relatively easy addition to the existing firmware since they use the familiar BIN6 protocol. In practice, supporting Shahe "Remote DRO" scales ended up requiring a complete rewrite of large portion of the firmware. While at it, I decided to invest some more time into adding several other improvements that have been on my "to do" list for some time now. After several weeks of testing and debugging, the new firmware is ready to be released. In addition to the added protocol support, the updated firmware includes a few major performance and stability tweaks that will make capacitive DRO scales behave much more reliable in a shop environment.

Virtual Layout Feature Preview

In the last post I showed some of the updates coming to the next version of TouchDRO. The new version will include a lot of tweaks, UI changes and improvements aimed to make the DRO even more flexible and efficient to use. As is, TouchDRO can already do much more than and old-school DRO, but next version is getting a number features that will push the limits of what you can do with a non-CNC mill or lathe. One of those features is the ability to set a background image in layout view and use the mill or the lathe to trace the contour.

Sneak Peek of the New TouchDRO Version

It's been awhile since the last major TouchDRO version release and I'm getting an increasing number of emails asking if I'm still developing the app. The answer is "definitely yes", and the new version is getting very close to be ready for beta testing. It has a number of new features and countless quality-of-life changes. I've been testing it in my shop for some time now and most of the functionality is pretty stable so it's a good time to post a quick preview of some of those changes and new features.