F7 keystroke Emulator

Hello-

Long time lurker here, first time poster!

I need to solve a automation problem of our operators hitting the F7 on a keyboard to indicate that one piece of product was made. The end goal would be a box we could on equipment that would use PLC cycle complete and send that to a PC as a F7 keystroke.

I am having a hard time of finding a hardware/software solution for emulating this. I want to have a PLC decide that product was created and then interface with a PC that controls our inventory system.

I have looked at programing a HC705 chip in some form....but it is proving to be beyond my scope.

Any ideas would be very helpfull.


Thanks!

Dan

In Visual Basic (and other programming systems) it's very easy to 'send' a keystroke to a program as long as you know its Window name.

What is the plc and can the end of cycle signal be read by a PC comm link to the plc ?

Or you can put a relay on a plc output, hook thats relay contact to a line on a parallel port, read that in a program and send the F7 to the app.

What's the program that *needs* an F7 ?

Get a cheap single ended solenoid valve, and a 1/2" stroke 1/2" diameter cylinder. Press the F7 key on a keyboard.

http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html

It doesn't come with F7 programmed as a switch closure by default, but it's reconfigurable to what ever keystroke(s) you need.

-rpoet

Rpoet,

That is a good solution. Dan most likely will need an additional relay to interface between PLC digital output and one of the IPAC card inputs.

rpoet said:

http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html

It doesn't come with F7 programmed as a switch closure by default, but it's reconfigurable to what ever keystroke(s) you need.

-rpoet

Click to expand...

Very nice. I may have to get one for a Flight Simulator setup.

Great advice! The PLC and all the hardware are not decided yet so i will do some more research. Thanks for the tips.

The cylinder pressing the key was actually on the list of possible solutions!

I have done something like this using the Windows SerialKeys function and the serial port of the controller. In my case, I used it to feed command lines to the TSHARK protocol analyzer to start and stop capture files.

I also once took apart a cheap USB mouse and connected its left-click button to a relay output on a MicroLogix so that I could emulate keypresses on a PanelView Plus !

Thanks for posting that I-PAC product link... that could be a great alternative approach to my SerialKeys method.

Ken's approach made me think of another possible solution; I have a little piece of software called SoftCOM32 that takes in ASCII on the serial port and converts it to key presses. It has special ways of dealing with the 'F' keys, since there's no way to represent them with traditional ASCII.

If the PLC can send ASCII data to the PC's serial port, you could send anything you want to.

I'm pretty sure SoftCOM32 isn't commercially available anymore (I think I paid about $20 about 10 years ago). Assuming that SoftCOM32 isn't available anymore and I don't think it is, I'd be willing to share it, if there are no forum objections. It's old software, and it appears to run on Vista, but I don't know about Win7. I'm just amazed I found the install files after all these years.

I hope this helps, or at least gives you another approach.

-rpoet

I just found that SoftCOM32 MIGHT still be available for purchase:

http://www.amltd.com/scanning_system.asp

I guess you have to call to find out. If it's still commercially available, I retract my offer for sharing. It sure wasn't wasy to find though. It was on the 3rd Google search page.

-rpoet

Thanks rpoet! I will look into that. I wanted to use a Koyo Click PLC that can send ASCII text string to the PC and have our IT guys figure it out from there, but my boss wants it to be USB now (ever changing project).

I did find a possible solution at www.vetra.com/encoder2.htm I will have to purchase the IPAC and one of these to see what I can do.

It looks like SoftCOM32 pre-dates the SerialKeys feature in Windows.

"[esc]f7." is the command string in SerialKeys, using the standard GIDEI command set for assistive input devices.

Omron<3Me,
FYI, the IPAC does support USB. USB 2.0 in fact, though I can't imagine pressing buttons fast enough for it to matter.

The IPAC uses an adapter cable to go from the PS2 connector to USB. My guess is they added USB functionality to the board, but didn't want to update the circuit board. I've used the IPAC, and it works like a charm.

I'd go with the IPAC myself, if for no other reason then it has terminal blocks. The Vetra stuff appears to have header pins on everything.

-rpoet

Cylinders

I know the keyboard/cylinder idea sounds kinda simple/redneck...but I'm actually going that route on a project I am working on right now.

2 thoughts, if your company is willing to try it (it works):

1: If this is a system where a team member is having to use the keyboard for their job, you can always get a new type usb keyboard that has expansion usb slots on it and use 2 keyboards if your system supports it. Hook the first usb keyboard into the computer, and hook the second keyboard into the first one (expansion usb slot - you will have to check ratings, but should be fine on amperage) or into another usb port on the computer. Take the first keyboard and mount the cylinders above it (you can use spring loaded to cut back on solenoid costs), and mount it down under the equipment or in a stand alone box, etc. something to hide the ugliness and keep people out of it. Leave the second keyboard out top for the operator. Then, if you have the plc output space, use an output on the plc from the equipment to fire the solenoid off of cycle complete.

2. If the keyboard is not needed by the operator for logging in (usernames / passwords) then just use one keyboard and mount it under the machine with cylinders. If IT will allow it, maybe even just set the PC up where they will not have to enter usernames/passwords, just click an Icon at the welcome screen (if windows based). Then use the same concept as #1 with PLC, solenoid, cylinder.

It sounds really crazy, but it saves a lot of money... I'm an engineer and my plant is all about saving money. Just a suggestion. I'll shutup now...