motion control - advice please

[JohnHaine]

GRBL is a very interesting program which is "logically" similar to a USB motion controller - you send it Gcode and it generates pulses and feeds back a load of control info for example the current axes positions, status etc. Works on basic Arduino but can work better on higher spec versions. There's also something optimised for lathes. I use grbl for driving my big mill's X axis and a rotary axis though I use Mach3 on a dedicated smaller CNC mill. There are limitations, I don't think all gcodes are supported, and last time I looked I don't think backlash compensation is either.

The snag with grbl is that it needs a front end to provide a UI, load and stream gcode and all the stuff that we are familiar with from Mach 3/4. It would be great if there was a Mach plugin for grbl but since the latter is open source maybe NFS don't want to open their API spec. There are various front ends - I use something called grbl controller that runs on my phone with a Bluetooth connection but it's very basic though I can jog the machine and run gcode programs. There are others but to me they looked more like programmers' ideas of CNC rather than machinists' - I may be doing them a disservice.

[opentoideas]

ok so think the time has come....

GRBL looks like a cheap option but if I am going to start playing around with arduino or ESP then LinuxCNC would seem like the better option and Mesa controllers are an interesting option comparing cost of controllers and isolated breakout boards the Mesa cards are similar in cost.

I am currently downloading the LinuxCNC live iso and will spend today having a look at how much fun its going to be....

I don't know how this will go and looking at the LinuxCNC forum and WIKI I am not confident but its only fair to give it a go.

wish me luck lol