you will need to click File :: Options to chose your COM port (and any other settings you fancy)
As well as sending the gcode it shows a picture of what it's up to
It's aimed at PCB milling btw
second the gcode interpreter that runs on the Uno http://www.mmcpix.com/CNC/GCode_Interpreter.zip
DO look at _init.pde as you will need to configure it to suit your machine
It supports 3 axes each with limit switches
like I said I think it's idiot-proof, but...
feel free to ask questions, but I take no responsibility for you destroying your Arduino, drivers, motors, house, wife, children, sundry other loved ones or any other part of your immediate environment!
oh and if you make any changes - please let me know what you did
Do you have any info on the machanics of your build, btw?
i am just downloading your codes. thank you sooo much by now. i will try to figure it out and let you know how i am doing. thank you for your offer to ask you questions.
regarding to my construction: i will build it next week. basically its a similar design to the makebot-router which you can find on www.makebot.com. the difference will be that i will use linear ball bearings. if you like i will keep you informed about how i am doing.
(1) i am just trying the cnc driver. i setup port 8 (where my arduino is connected) but the software is telling me "unable to open port (win error code: 2)".
(2) i wired my arduino the way it says in _init.pde what is strange is that the stepper motors all go on "wake up" and get hot after a while. maybe i am an idiot but in the _init.pde it says pins 14-19 correspond to analog 0-5 so i connected pin 18 to A4 ( where it says analog in). i guess this is bullshit - can you tell me where the pins 14-19 are? i am sorry for asking stupid questions but i maybe an idiot
i can talk to arduino using port 8 and i told cncdriver to use this port (in the tools menu). thats how i connected arduino and uploaded the qgcode interpreter. i also tried it using serproxy on that port and running a flash application which drives a stepper motor.
i tried the same on an arduino duemilanove which connects to port 7. so i did upload gcode interpreter and then started cncdriver. then "tools menu", "options" set port to 7.
YOU BRILLIANT YOU! good morning by the way. i changed to com5 (windows told me that another device is already using com5) and it works. thank you a thousand times.
i will be finishing the router today or tomorrow and i must say that i was really worried the last days when i thought "oh, i am building a router and when i am finished i don´t know how to drive it". i read about thousand threads and googled for cnc arduino blah blah until my fingers blooded but did not find one solution that i understand.
would you be so nice and provide me with some more information about the gcode interpreter _init.pde regarding how to wire all up?
just to make sure:
what i understand are the stepper controls like
#define X_STEP_PIN 7 #define X_DIR_PIN 6
#define Y_STEP_PIN 2 #define Y_DIR_PIN 3
#define Z_STEP_PIN 9 #define Z_DIR_PIN 10
what i am not shure are:
(1) endswithches
for example: #define X_MIN_PIN 14 #define X_MAX_PIN 15
do i have to connect the switches also to 3.3V, 5V or something else?
(2) motor control
is this the sleep/wakeup for the easy drivers?
(3) panic stop/reset
are these buttons and do they need some 3.3V, 5V or somehting else like the endswitches?
i would be glad if you would help me again and wish you the best possible day!!
as a noob i have to ask again: i would think that i need to go with some voltage to the switch wich then goes to a pin on the arduino in case the switch is pressed. am i right? if so, does it matter if i use 3.3V or 5V from the arduino?
another question regarding these switches is, that i thought, that these are also used to set the axis to 0. i mean before the actual cutting starts, the motors should drive the axis to for example axis-min-switch and resets the measurement of the axis to 0 to know where it is, as the stepper motors only measure relativly.
those limit switches will be fine
I would use whatever voltage you have on the Arduino
so the switch (when closed) will connect, for example, 5v to the limit measuring (max or min) pin
you can also use them as "home" switches, but the software makes no provision for that
stepper motors just o what they are told
the software can use absolute or relative positioning
the PC interface allows you to "jog" (move) x y and z manually
to generate gcode. as i design my things in 3d (cinema4d) and cut3d generates gcode from 3d formats. if you know an alternative, please tell me.
the thing i´m curious now is how do i position my workpiece so that it is milled correctly? do i just place the head somewhere and then put the workpiece relative to this position regarding the settings in the "tools" "options" menu (origin x, origin y)? < confused again >
is there any way to get the machine finding its 0-axes and then count "absolut" from there on?
I'm just curious (not trying to be critical) as to why one would want to run a CNC machine with an Arduino when it's relatively easy and inexpensive to simply use EMC2? I run this very powerful and capable software on a 10 year old Pentium 4 machine I got for free so my software and computer costs are zero. The EMC2 community is very active and supportive and development of the software is constant in response to the users needs. Couldn't ask for more!
for me it was the intellectual challenge of implementing it all
you still need something that sits between EMC2, which is software, and the steppers (raw hardware)
the Arduino + EasyDriver combination provides the equivalent of commercial setups like Gecko at £ several hundred
Further most commercial software needs to use the parallel ports as all the timing is done on the PC and you can't wait for USB/serial ports to catch up
by offloading the signal generation to the Arduino, you remove this problem at a stroke