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.