Budget Friendly Touch Panels?

jabramson
jabramson Junior Member
in AMX Hardware
Looking for a TP that is at least $12”, but the AMX options are quite pricey. Are there other options available? I know about the TPI-PRO, but that is just as expensive.
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Comments

  • jjames
    jjames AMX Sustaining Engineer
    High prices are just the nature of the game. Welcome to AMX! :D
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  • champ
    champ Junior Member
    Unless you are planning to do this in bulk the initial development is not worth it as I have tried it in the past.
    Don't be deceived by the incredibly low cost of monitors with touch overlays as the real cost is in the back end.

    Let's imagine you look down the path of using a small PC, this will cost a few hundred $$, be running an unreliable OS or require the development of a custom OS (ie also unreliable for several generations), be bulky so can't live in the same location as the monitor and tend to crash eventually due to fans clogging up and general overheating.

    Now you need a development environment. You could choose C# or flash or whatever you like.
    Next you have to write some middleware and make it stable so your TP can talk to your AMX realtime, no crashing.
    Finally you need to create the actual GUI. I haven't played much in object programming languages but the times I have I found GUI designing to be nowhere near as easy as TPDesign4.

    On the other hand I tried this a long time ago and there may be easier options now, if so let me know.
    As an added kick in the teeth imagine your client now wants a video preview.
    You need a capture card (which probably means a tower PC now) or a way to stream the video then your UI development environment needs to have access to the video stream.
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  • John Nagy
    John Nagy CineTouch Product Manager
    A bit roundabout, but...
    Dell and others sell touch monitors. The one I have here (and use at shows) is 22" and a Dell.
    Last week I bought a $100 Android box and plugged it into the HDMI port. So far it runs TPControl nicely but too slow (they will be addressing Android issues soon, I think). I don't yet have it using the touch screen, but I'm hopeful.

    We have often used the 22" Dell attached to a small laptop running VNC to a real AMX panel and using the touch. Works fine. And ip video works too.
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  • Don DeLong
    Don DeLong Junior Member
    Could do a B-stock/refurbished panel for cheaper, or get a gently used iPad 2 and TPControl
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  • DHawthorne
    DHawthorne Junior Member
    Don DeLong wrote: »
    Could do a B-stock/refurbished panel for cheaper, or get a gently used iPad 2 and TPControl

    iPad won't fit his target size ...needs a bigger screen. That was my first thought too. Personally, I try not to get into the "bargain" game with clients. I tell them what I can do, and how much it will cost. I'd rather walk away from a deal than lose my own shirt on callbacks and unforeseen difficulties just to save them a few bucks. I customize software, but try really hard to draw the line at customizing hardware, unless it's a dead-simple application and unlikely to cause trouble. It simply has too much potential to come back to haunt you.
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  • John Nagy
    John Nagy CineTouch Product Manager
    When you do extra work for a customer to save them money, you generally get blame instead of profit.
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