I built the remote pendant found on thingiverese.
Anyone else out there try building it? Got it working, modified the code and button function to suit my needs. Trying to program the pendant to continuously move an axis if you hold down one of the directional buttons. Anyone else have any success programming this feature?
Bryan,
Could you point me in the direction of more details please.
I’m very interested in this, the Marlin Control/LCD drives me crazy.
Bill.
Bill you should have a look at v1pi as well. Less hardware and control from a phone or computer wirelessly.
That pendant and something like v1pi are going to not be compatible either, since they both send gcodes to the controller.
I just followed the instructions on the Thingiverse link. I bought all the parts off ebay and printed the enclosure. I modified the key layout and changed the arduino program to suit. If you follow the instructions provided it will work. Only complicated part is figuring out where to plug into the MPCNC control board. I use a Arduino MEGA/RAMPS 1.4. 5V and ground are easily found and I used the D0 pin to receive the data transfer. The D0 pin does not work if you are using the USB port on the Arduino at the same time as the pendant. Make sure the baud rate on the Arduino Mega/Ramps is the same as the Arduino UNO. Took me awhile to figure that out.
Ryan, I set Octoprint up for my 3D printer because I was sick and tired of moving the SD card from computer to printer, now I never use it but it did a better job of PID settings than the Wanhao embedded version.
Thanks for the info Bryan, I’ll get some goddies ordered and give it a try.
Bill.
I use LinuxCNC.
You can just hook up a standard USB game controller. I use that and love it.
It works.
Should anyone make one the baud rate in the membrane.ino is wrong, it needs changing to 250000.
Could someone give a little advice please.
The pendant has a Nano in it, it is connected to the Ramps AUX1, 5v,gnd and RX0.
If I power the pendant from it’s USB from my laptop with the Mega/ramps/LCD not connected to power the LCD lights dimly.
Will this damage the Mega.
Would I be better having both powered.
Thanks,
Bill.
Hmmmm. I have a Jetson TK1 board in a drawer someplace. Think I just found something for it to do…
Thanks for the info - I’ve been battling to get this to work and now success.
I am sorry for reviving this old thread, butttttt, if i were to make a pendant remote, can i use a normal arduino if i have one or 2 from when radio shack went under or does it need to be the nano??
Any board that writes and optionally reads serial data can be used for a pendant, but you need to consider the voltages of the two boards. If the voltage of the control board and the Arduino board are different, you may need to make provisions for 1) powering the Arduino board, and 2) changing the voltage of sending and/or receiving serial data. Typically, a 5V board can receive 3.3V data just fine, but if sending 5V data to a 3.3V board, I would, at minimum, add a voltage divider circuit (uses 2 resistors). Actually, given how cheap Arduino boards are, I’d simply pick a board that matches the voltage of the control board.
The other thing to consider is serial pins on the control board and what you need to do to enable them for your use. This will depend on your control board and somewhat on your usage scenario.
I use a Rambo 1.4 board and created a pendant. I run headless, so I was able to simply use the TX0/RX0 pins without any firmware modification. I use an Arduino nano which runs at 5V and matches the 5V of the Rambo board. If I was using the USB on the Rambo board, then I would have to enable a second serial port in the firmware. On the other hand, the last time I read about serial data and the SKR Pro 1.2 board, the V1 maintained firmware did not allow the enabling of enough serial ports to make a pendant work, BUT the latest Marlin release (used in the V1 daily builds), added additional serial port support. I don’t think this serial support has made it to the V1 release builds, but I’m not sure.
Small correction here.
The V1 maintained firmware enables the serial UART that connects to the TFT35 E3 LCD, as well as the EXT1 and EXT2 cables which it uses for Marlin mode. The UART is a 250000 baud serial port, so that can be used as-is. If you do have the LCD, it also has a serial port which can be enabled in the config.ini. The ESP01S module uses this to communicate, and the TFT passes along the serial data to the SKR Pro (Unless it is in Marlin mode.)
As such, if you are not using the TFT35, using the TFT serial port is possible, and even if you are using the TFT as well as a pendant, it’s a reasonably simple matter to daisy chain onto the TFT without a need to recompile (Though you may have to update the config.ini file for the TFT)
In my case, I have the ESP01S, which is basically an Arduino-like module which talks to the TFT module via a serial port, and acts as a wifi pendant/control.
The SKR Pro also has a port for the ESP01S module on-board, but that serial port does require a recompile of the Marlin firmware.
So just to verify, if Riely has an SKR Pro board, he can enable the port for the ESP01 even if he wants to use Marlin mode from his TFT? The ESP01 counts as the 2nd serial port? I read on the forum that support was being added to Marlin for a 3rd serial port, but I don’t think V1 has updated their release firmware since that change was made, and someone with a SKR Pro needed the 3rd serial port for a pendant. Maybe they were already using an ESP01S module.
Riley: If you tell us what control board and what Arduino board you want to use, we can provide some guidance.
I went old school with Ramps and Arduino. But, I guess I did not think that mattered. I just kinda want a pendant, and may have all the stuff to do it if I can use a normal arduino 
The current version of V1 firmware should allow a third serial port.
For the RAMPS stack, you can use the Rx/Tx pins to a regular Arduino.
You did not say which Arduino board you have, so I’m going to assume given the Radio Shack purchase it is an Arduino UNO. If so, then voltage is not a concern, both your Ramps/Mega board and the UNO run on 5V. There are two potential issues.
Pulling current from the Mega board to run the UNO. If I remember correctly an UNO will pull about 25ma. This should be okay, especially if you have a genuine Arduino board. With a clone, you should still be okay, but the voltage regulators on clone boards are notoriously flakey.
Identifying what pins to use. On the Mega board (the board paired with the Ramps board), these are the serial pins:
Port RX TX
0 D0 D1
1 D19 D18
2 D17 D16
3 D15 D14
So, the task is to identify and perhaps enable a serial pin pair as exposed by the Ramps board.
If you do not have a display, you are golden. Pins D16 and D17 are exposed on Aux-4 on the ramps board, and no changes to the firmware are required. This is a plug and play solution. In addition, even if you plan to use other pins in the long term, disconnecting the display and using these two pins will allow you to test your pendant without worrying about any other serial issues.
If you don’t send your data via USB to your Ramps board, you can probably use pins D0 and 1, but you may need to snake pin D0 from the Mega board directly. I did not find D0 exposed on the pinout. Using D0 and D1 should not require a firmware change.
According to Marlin pinout file for the Ramps board, pins D18 and D19 are used for Z-min and Z-max, and pins D14 and D15 are used for Y-min and Y-max. In order to use either of these pairs, you would have to 1) redefine their usage to other pins, and 2) enable a third serial port. Dan says the third serial port functionality has made it to the V1 release versions.
If you are building the pendant referenced in the pictures above your post, I don’t think you need to find a TX pin. I believe all it does is send data, so all you need is an RX pin on the Ramps board and a TX pin on your Arduino UNO.
To be honest, I would need to look and see. They are a just in a drawer. I had one for some RGB lighting I used quite a few years ago to see how it would look as Red/Blue lights, (Which after I realized was not a great idea as all emergency cars are that) and that one has been in a drawer also. I will see if I get froggy this weekend. Thanks for all the info, greatly appreciated!!
P.s. I really did not think much about any of this stuff. Sorry so vague of a question!!!
An UNO board, even one from many years ago, will work just fine for a wired pendant. Be aware that if you upgrade your Arduino IDE, you may have to figure out how to set it for an older UNO bootloaders.