Homemade CNC Software

Hello gtrplyer16,

Welcome to the element14 Community, we hope you enjoy it. I will move this to the Single Board Computers area as it is a better fit to your question.

Thank you,

Jamie

Thank you. I'm new to element14 and wasn't sure which would be best.

Hello gtrplyer16,

No worries at all, I hope you enjoy it here.

Thank you,

Jamie

Hi Tyler,

Probably you want the most reliable method possible otherwise it will be quite dangerous. I think it would need something with a fair bit of processing power (to accelerate/decellerate correctly). I think it would be best to refer to CNC forums to be honest, to see what bits of hardware and software are known to be reliable, unless you plan on developing your own HW/SW combination. I doubt Arduino will have the processing power (unless you plan on using it just as an interface to a larger PC), and the RPI will not be a safe option here either.

Thank you shabaz! I will check out the forums now. I have been seeing "Mach 3" but wasn't sure if that would be the simplest for being a starter to designing a CNC. I've never done anything of this magnitude yet and appreciate your input!

Hi Tyler,

No problem, I hope it goes well, it sounds like an interesting challenge!

Some useful starting points:

http://www.linuxcnc.org/

http://blog.machinekit.io/

Machinekit has been tailored for the BBB and I believe it uses the PRUs for some of the hard stuff, so availability of a BBB may be a problem. But yes, there is software available to do this sort of thing.

I use LinuxCNC for my table.  Highly recommended.

Also check out:

www.openbuilds.com

and

buildyourcnc.com

for hardware.

LinuxCNC will drive up to 7 axis and is well supported.

I use uno r3 with cnc shield on a pi 2 running universal gcode sender

A mega with ramps 1.4 is also a option with marlin which I will be playing with soon on my laser engraver soon.

Welcome Tyler,

There is an old Ben Heck Show episode where he implemented his first CNC using an Arduino.

You might want to look it up.

The controller just needs to properly decode the Gcode and drive the various motors to do the work as commanded.

The MCU selected is mostly about how fast you need the job done and that issue also depends upon the hardware capability you have and the material you intend to work with.

DAB