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[on:]

Hi fellow arduino people,

I am making a 3-axis CNC milling machine using an Arduino Mega2560. I am using 3 bipolar stepper motors (Nema 17) for the axis movement.
I am planning on using Grbl to control the motors. Do I need to have a Grbl Shield?? or can I just use the stepper controllers that I already have made using an LK239 dual H-bridge?
Also I can't quite figure out how to upload the Grbl software to the arduino, as I can't use the arduino sketch program.

Please help.

[Reply #1 on:]

1. Hey I'm in the same boat. I have successfully downloaded GRBL though. Then saved into my Arduino IDE/Libraries. Next, I downloaded g-code-sender. I then followed a tutorial on connecting GRBL to g-code-sender then it was installed into my UNO. Finally I could upload a sample g-code to my UNO from g-code-sender and see the RX/TX leds flicker to let me know its working along with watching each line of code execute on the g-code-sender program. P.S. I'm on Windows7 (64bit).

2. I have been going through the config.h(grbl) and I can't seem to "REPIN IT", if you will, to accommodate the Arduino UNO►Ada-fruit Motor Shield. I believe the GRBL program will supply direct to a Stepper Driver and not to a Translator(sn74hc595n on the motor shield). To my understanding is that The Motor Shield works like Co-Phasing one signal into two, that's where the Dual H-Bridge comes in. I am self taught and not even a noob yet(16yrs on/off) and I hope this helps somewhat.

I will release more info as I have it.

Take Care, DoUduino