If you want to use a foot pedal with your gage, QC-Gage supports this. How this works varies based on the type of foot pedal you are using and how it is connected.
- The foot pedal plugs directly into the gage:
Here, the foot pedal plugs into the gage, and QC-Gage listens to the COM port. QC-Gage does not interact directly with the foot pedal and has no control over the foot pedal. QC-Gage will just sit here and wait for data to show up on the COM port.
The setup here is the same as if you are using a gage without a foot pedal. QC-Gage is not aware of the foot pedal and does not need to be aware of it. When the foot pedal is stepped on, the gage will simply transmit it's data to QC-Gage, and then QC-Gage will do the rest (once it has been configured to receive data from the gage).
- A programmable foot pedal that does not directly connect with the gage:
In this case, the foot pedal is connected to the computer, and not directly connected with the gage. For this to work, the foot pedal will have to be set to send an "F12" keypress to QC-Gage. When QC-Gage receives the F12 keypress, it will trigger the "Get Data" button in QC-Gage. This, in turn, sends a command back to the gage to transmit the data.
You can program the Gage Definition to have the Get Data send anything you want back out the COM Port. For example, if you need to send Fr17Q9{CR} to get a proper reading from the gage, you can set that as the "GetData" value for that Gage Definition. Normally the user would just click on the Get Data button, or hit the F12 key. Now the foot pedal does that job.
- 4-Port Mux box with only one foot pedal plug
There are several Multiplexer boxes out there that work this way. You could have 4 gages connected to the one Mux box, but there is only one foot pedal. When the user steps on the foot pedal it is simply an on/off switch to indicate that the foot pedal was stepped on. As a result, the Mux box does not have any more information to send more/less or different data.
QC-Gage can be set to tell the box ahead of time that the next time the foot pedal is triggered, send only the value from a specific port (assuming the Mux box has this common ability). We usually do this with the Gage Prep command which is set on each characteristic. This way, as soon as a cell in the running spec plan becomes active the Gage Prep command set for that characteristics gets sent out to the box. This, in turn, will trigger the correct gage to transmit it's data to QC-Gage when the foot pedal is used.
