[mrgame1988]

hi all,

I'm very new to home built cnc's... I don't have a computer(laptop) with a db25 port yet i'm hoping there is a way to control my machine without the costly expense of a smoothstepper.

Cheers Ryan

[109jb]

For the absolute lowest cost alternative you can check out GRBL and some of the windows based Graphical interfaces for it. GRBL runs on an Arduino Uno, Nano, or Mega 2560 and the GUI resides on any computer with a usb port. Communicationfrom the GUI on the computer to GRBL on the Arduino is through a serial connection with a usb port. The GUI doesn't have to run in any special realtime kernal or anything like that because all of the realtime stuff is actually handled by GRBL on the Arduino.

I am currently using it on my G0704, mostly as an experiment, but it has run several parts recently without missing a beat. I am using my own GUI interface for it, but it is not yet ready for public release which I hope to do eventually. Even so, there are several other interfaces that are free. GRBL is also free, so you just have to buy an Arduino. An Arduino clone can be bought for about $3. If you run GRBL you do not need a breakout board for a typical 3 axis machine so you can actually be even cheaper than a parallel port machine. GRBL can support 3 steppers, 3 axis worth of limit switches, coolant, and spindle PWM. .

GRBL doesn't support all of the g-code instruction set. Notably it is missing canned cycles, but canned cycles are basically macros of simpler moves that can be handled by a CAM post processor. Canned cycles is something I am working to integrate into my GUI and I am almost there, but only really affects hand coding, which I do a lot of.

You can check out GRBL at the following links

main GRBL page on Github - https://github.com/grbl/grbl
GRBL WIKI Page - https://github.com/grbl/grbl/wiki

Here is a simple digram showing 3 axis wiring. It does not show coolant or spindle PWN though

Attachment 286300

You can also see grbl running on my machine at this youtube link. It shows a comparison of GRBL 0.9i vs LinuxCNC 2.6, and also some stuff about the interface I am writing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1mxS7WI-tg

Here is an e-bay link to an Arduino Uno clone

New Uno R3 ATMEGA328P CH340 Mini USB Board for Compatible Arduino | eBay

Here are some of the current free GUI's for GRBL

https://github.com/winder/Universal-G-Code-Sender
http://zapmaker.org/projects/grbl-controller-3-0/
https://github.com/gerritv/Grbl-Panel
http://www.jtronics.de/software/jcnc-cnc-steuerung.html (select english language from the pulldown)

LinuxCNC and Mach3 have more features, but for a low cost alternative

[109jb]

I forgot to mention that if you already have a machine with a parallel port breakout board, you can make a simple adapter to use GRBL with it. That is actually how I have my machine running right now. Here is a link showing my adapter

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/bencht...ml#post1673326