Remote Control Feature of the Software
With the Remote feature in the software you can either connect to the serial port of the machine the Coil Winder software is running on from another computer or use a Virtual Bridging driver so your software on the same machine can connect and send commands.
Here I have tested com0com driver that creates 2 virtual serial ports and joins them together.
You can download and install the com0com from the following site:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/com0com/
After it has installed you can run the setup application and name the COM ports to what you like or use the names it assigns.
Do not use the ports named CNCA0 and CNCB0, but use the other COM port numbers it creates.
For now let’s presume it creates two ports called COM1 and COM2 and automatically bridges them.
First to test on the same PC that the Coil Winder Application is installed on you could do the following with code written on your application:
In the Coil Winder test application you would connect it to COM1 of the pair configured and on your application you would connect that to the COM2.
With your code you can now you can simply send any of the G or M commands that you would use in the script and then either start, stop, pause, homefeeder and homewireguide commands to control the interface.
So if we wanted to say do 10 winds with a pitch of 1.0 at 300RPM then your application would send the following out of COM2
G1-SR1-WS001.0000000-WI000010.000-BD1-WD1-PA0-SP0300-FR1
Wait for OK to come back as a reply
Now send
start
This coil winding application would then load the first command you sent into the scripting window and then you would send the start command next to start the script running.
If you wanted to move the feeder say 0.1mm and no winds then you would send
G1-SR1-WS000.1000000-WI000000.000-BD1-WD1-PA0-SP0300-FR1
Wait for OK to come back as a reply
Now send
start
You of course can change any of the values in each command to suit your feedback.
When sending a command you will get a OK reply back to say it has received it and a CD back when the command is complete.
Now for sending multiple commands you can send.
Send
clear
Wait for OK to come back as a reply
Now send
BG1-SR1-WS001.0000000-WI000010.000-BD1-WD0-PA0-SP0100-FR1
Wait for OK to come back as a reply
Now send
BG1-SR1-WS001.0000000-WI000010.000-BD1-WD0-PA0-SP0100-FR1
Wait for OK to come back as a reply
Now send
BG1-SR1-WS001.0000000-WI000010.000-BD1-WD0-PA0-SP0100-FR1
Wait for OK to come back as a reply
Now send
start
Same with any M commands, just pop a B in front of it.
Now to use with an external computer such as the Raspberry pi you would use a USB > Serial Port adapter such as the FTDI ones that would plug into the PC and create a virtual COM port on the PC.
https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/sparkfun-ftdi-basic-breakout-5v?variant=7426655617¤cy=GBP&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=google+shopping?utm_source=google&utm_medium=surfaces&utm_campaign=shopping&gclid=Cj0KCQiAuP-OBhDqARIsAD4XHpcPS8xLQ67O2DrHziZBlRiCPDaHEHCRb7rsujeIBmzLg302yvsUpXcaAidOEALw_wcB
Change the port in the Coil Winder Application to suit the one that is now the Virtual Com Port
Now wire the USB>Serial adapter TX and RX lines to the Raspberry pi GPIO pins and change the python script now running on the Raspberry pi to send the commands out to that local COM port on the GPIO pins.