Build a ChiliPeppr Driven 3040 CNC 

+Dimitri Del Corral I started out a few years ago using Grbl and a CNC shield that used Pololu drivers. I blew out a lot of those A4988 drivers so I don't trust them anymore. If you get a CNC shield get the 8825 chips instead. I see that's $28 on ebay. Ok, now here's the problem. Grbl is at end-of-life. The Atmel 328p chip has no room in it for Grbl to get better. I needed a 4th axis for my 3040 as you'll see in one of my other videos. TinyG is the only CNC controller that supports a 4th axis. Read my Grbl vs TinyG for a full rundown chilipeppr2.blogspot.com/2015/06/grbl-vs-tinyg.html

+John Lauer Can you tell me if the red wire on the emergency stop button goes on the NO of the emergency button and if the black goes on the NC of the emergency button? I am using a Ardrino Uno with CNC Shield.

the black will go to the Common of the emergency stop, and the red would more than likely go to the NO pin, to hook this up to th arduino, look through your code for an emergency stop function. this should tell you what pins to plug the stop button into.

+Eric Au (Metro Grade Goods) For sure. Your build is great. I do think if you're going to spend this much on a CNC machine it's worth doing a great CNC controller like TinyG.

+John Lauer maybe, when they are available. For now the DVR chips are giving me the same amperage on my steppers. I think the tinyg will be smoother

+John Lauer Do you have a video about your Raspberry Pi setup? Being new the Raspberry Pi and someone not really interested in programming I feel like I'm going about using my RasPi 2 the wrong way. I think of it as a tiny Linux box and that's about it. I was gifted the Pi and since I'm planning to use an Arudino and a Grbl CNC shield for my controller I would like to pair the Pi with either a stand alone Arduino or the Alamode shield for the Pi and use ChiliPeppr to control everything to make a nice neat package if possible. I appreciate any input and all the work (you did?) that went into ChiliPeppr. I still haven't made it through your 1hr+ video about the introduction to ChilliPeppr yet.

Sorry, I use chilipeppr.com/tinyg workspace. For power I just hooked it to the existing power supply that came with the machine which is 24v.

It's no help you don't already have a deep understanding of EMC2 or whatever other software. Both EMC and CNCLinux was beyound understanding for 35+ year veteran of computers. It needs you to do this and that , ERROR because you didn't ZERO ..... ( maybe I zeroed before I started the software..) arg , you can't adjust settings unless it moves and it just refused to move or move more than once.

Sambo Zero? Do you mean home the axes? Yes, that is a requirement. Once you do home your machine you can use it from then on. I cannot even imagine what settings you want to adjust. I adjust whatever I want, before I decide to run a job.

I guess it was homing , but there were many other hoops to jump , like hardware E-stop , software stop/enable, homing each axis separate ( multiple keystrokes or clicks...) although I did get some movement under EMC all the extra steps just made me want to move to something dumber while trying to iron out the inconsistent movement I was getting every time I restarted. All that after installing Win 2000 on the old computer with parallel port I was able to get.

Sambo If you were running Windows, then you weren't running LinuxCNC.

The drivers for TinyG? Those are from the TinyG website and it depends on what version you're using.

Couple reasons. 1) The BBB has GPIO on it so I can have it toggle on my eventual LED lighting, vacuum, fans, etc. You can't do that from a laptop. and 2) I want to be able to run my job from my laptop and be able to walk around the house and monitor the job by keeping the laptop with me. I will be running multiple webcams inside ChiliPeppr to visually and audibly keep tabs.

Cool. Good Answer! I wasn't even thinking beyond my tactile switches for lights and vac.

ChiliPeppr sends to the Serial Port JSON Server. That server is a bridge between a websocket and all your serial ports. So, yes, you can run the Serial Port JSON Server on your laptop and eliminate a device, but it's nice to use a separate device so your high-end laptop can be de-coupled from being next to the dirty/dusty CNC machine. You can start your job and go sit on the deck with a coffee while it runs and you monitor it from your laptop.

I think the v8 is the way to go and is what I use these days.

gr8deals2do Nice. I would say go for the higher end companies. Don't skimp. Avoid trapezoidal screws possibly unless it's not important to you. There are low-end providers on ebay. ChiliPeppr will be fine for you. It takes standard Gcode. Do a TinyG controller too. I have recently swapped the BeagleBoneBlack for a Raspberry Pi 2 which has been great for me.

John Lauer I am going a custom Build with TinyG and want to use a raspberry PI. The question is since you have to use a laptop to access the browser to run ChiliPeppr, what's the benefit of the Raspberry Pi? Can I send the Gcode to the RB Pi Wirelessly via the Json network on CP? Or do I need to be networked with an ethernet cable to the RB Pi?

Don't know anything about that new controller, but I think TinyG is still the way to go so you should toss out that controller they sell with it.

tgfx was discontinued and ChiliPeppr was its replacement

+Paul Koenig I never actually measured how true the bed was. Now that you're mentioning it I may test it. How did you test it though? Using a probing technique?

If you use ChiliPeppr and TinyG then the motor calibration is: // Response from $$ Command [fb] firmware build 442.04 [fv] firmware version 0.97 [hp] hardware platform 1.00 [hv] hardware version 8.00 [id] TinyG ID 3X3566-YRS [ja] junction acceleration 100000 mm [ct] chordal tolerance 0.0100 mm [sl] soft limit enable 0 [st] switch type 0 [0=NO,1=NC] [mt] motor idle timeout 2.00 Sec [ej] enable json mode 0 [0=text,1=JSON] [jv] json verbosity 4 [0=silent,1=footer,2=messages,3=configs,4=linenum,5=verbose] [js] json serialize style 1 [0=relaxed,1=strict] [tv] text verbosity 1 [0=silent,1=verbose] [qv] queue report verbosity 1 [0=off,1=single,2=triple] [sv] status report verbosity 1 [0=off,1=filtered,2=verbose] [si] status interval 250 ms [ec] expand LF to CRLF on TX 0 [0=off,1=on] [ee] enable echo 0 [0=off,1=on] [ex] enable flow control 1 [0=off,1=XON/XOFF, 2=RTS/CTS] [baud] USB baud rate 5 [1=9600,2=19200,3=38400,4=57600,5=115200,6=230400] [net] network mode 0 [0=master] [gpl] default gcode plane 0 [0=G17,1=G18,2=G19] [gun] default gcode units mode 1 [0=G20,1=G21] [gco] default gcode coord system 1 [1-6 (G54-G59)] [gpa] default gcode path control 2 [0=G61,1=G61.1,2=G64] [gdi] default gcode distance mode 0 [0=G90,1=G91] [1ma] m1 map to axis 2 [0=X,1=Y,2=Z...] [1sa] m1 step angle 1.800 deg [1tr] m1 travel per revolution 4.0000 mm [1mi] m1 microsteps 8 [1,2,4,8] [1po] m1 polarity 1 [0=normal,1=reverse] [1pm] m1 power management 2 [0=disabled,1=always on,2=in cycle,3=when moving] [2ma] m2 map to axis 1 [0=X,1=Y,2=Z...] [2sa] m2 step angle 1.800 deg [2tr] m2 travel per revolution 4.0000 mm [2mi] m2 microsteps 8 [1,2,4,8] [2po] m2 polarity 1 [0=normal,1=reverse] [2pm] m2 power management 2 [0=disabled,1=always on,2=in cycle,3=when moving] [3ma] m3 map to axis 3 [0=X,1=Y,2=Z...] [3sa] m3 step angle 1.800 deg [3tr] m3 travel per revolution 4.0000 mm [3mi] m3 microsteps 8 [1,2,4,8] [3po] m3 polarity 0 [0=normal,1=reverse] [3pm] m3 power management 2 [0=disabled,1=always on,2=in cycle,3=when moving] [4ma] m4 map to axis 0 [0=X,1=Y,2=Z...] [4sa] m4 step angle 1.800 deg [4tr] m4 travel per revolution 4.0000 mm [4mi] m4 microsteps 8 [1,2,4,8] [4po] m4 polarity 0 [0=normal,1=reverse] [4pm] m4 power management 2 [0=disabled,1=always on,2=in cycle,3=when moving] [xam] x axis mode 1 [standard] [xvm] x velocity maximum 1800 mm/min [xfr] x feedrate maximum 1800 mm/min [xtn] x travel minimum 0.000 mm [xtm] x travel maximum 150.000 mm [xjm] x jerk maximum 20 mm/min^3 * 1 million [xjh] x jerk homing 40 mm/min^3 * 1 million [xjd] x junction deviation 0.0500 mm (larger is faster) [xsn] x switch min 1 [0=off,1=homing,2=limit,3=limit+homing] [xsx] x switch max 0 [0=off,1=homing,2=limit,3=limit+homing] [xsv] x search velocity 500 mm/min [xlv] x latch velocity 100 mm/min [xlb] x latch backoff 5.000 mm [xzb] x zero backoff 1.000 mm [yam] y axis mode 1 [standard] [yvm] y velocity maximum 1800 mm/min [yfr] y feedrate maximum 1800 mm/min [ytn] y travel minimum 0.000 mm [ytm] y travel maximum 150.000 mm [yjm] y jerk maximum 20 mm/min^3 * 1 million [yjh] y jerk homing 40 mm/min^3 * 1 million [yjd] y junction deviation 0.0500 mm (larger is faster) [ysn] y switch min 1 [0=off,1=homing,2=limit,3=limit+homing] [ysx] y switch max 0 [0=off,1=homing,2=limit,3=limit+homing] [ysv] y search velocity 500 mm/min [ylv] y latch velocity 100 mm/min [ylb] y latch backoff 5.000 mm [yzb] y zero backoff 1.000 mm [zam] z axis mode 1 [standard] [zvm] z velocity maximum 1800 mm/min [zfr] z feedrate maximum 800 mm/min [ztn] z travel minimum 0.000 mm [ztm] z travel maximum 75.000 mm [zjm] z jerk maximum 20 mm/min^3 * 1 million [zjh] z jerk homing 40 mm/min^3 * 1 million [zjd] z junction deviation 0.0500 mm (larger is faster) [zsn] z switch min 0 [0=off,1=homing,2=limit,3=limit+homing] [zsx] z switch max 1 [0=off,1=homing,2=limit,3=limit+homing] [zsv] z search velocity 400 mm/min [zlv] z latch velocity 100 mm/min [zlb] z latch backoff 5.000 mm [zzb] z zero backoff 1.000 mm

Correct, you can just drag/drop your Gcode on your local laptop and hit Play in ChiliPeppr. Check out some of the other videos on ChiliPeppr.

+Jeff Page For sure. I can't believe how many people have mimicked this setup. I sure am blown away by the detail quality I get on this machine. Anybody looking at a timing belt-based machine should just stop right now and switch to ballscrews. Entire world of difference.

Actually, the more I look at ChiliPeppr, the more I like it. If I close the Chilipeppr browser interface and/or put my computer to sleep, will ChiliPeppr still run?

ChiliPeppr uploads the Gcode to Serial Port JSON Server which can only queue 200,000 lines of Gcode. So you do need to keep your browser open until all of your lines are queued.

+DKTAz00 Why are you using a parallel port? Is that so you can use Mach3?

heh, good question. To be honest, I'm using mach3 because it came with the machine. :) But I never looked in to any other options. The lpt board was 75 usd, and I guess you never know when you need an extra pc. Made a crude case for it too www.thingiverse.com/thing:1242658 But one thing I didn't see/catch you covering was, are there any pros to peppering it? *edit* besides usb

+DKTAz00 There's a million reasons to "peppr" it. First, parallel ports have gone the way of the dodo bird. You should move to USB. Also, powerful microcontrollers are so cheap now, you should move the step generation off your PC and onto a microcontroller. Mach3 has the PC generate steps while it's also trying to handle the UI. Also, you gain the power of the cloud with ChiliPeppr and the benefits of the browser. You can write Javascript macros, drag in Eagle BRD's to mill PCB's, extend your CNC machine to add lasers, pick and place heads, additional axes, heater control, etc. The development community is probably the biggest thing you inherit. Mach3 was great in its day, but the world has changed and the cloud is where you want to be.

The beagle bone is now on my watch list as I am presently running a fully blown pc just to allow me to run usb over our home network.

No, ChiliPeppr only works with TinyG boards or Grbl boards.

You can runs Serial Port JSON Server on your local PC that also runs ChiliPeppr if you want a simple setup. I, however, am willing to put a dedicated Raspberry Pi in my controller that auto-boots Serial Port JSON Server so that it's just always on and connected. I also can then run a milling job from my laptop and take my laptop with me to the next room while the Raspbery Pi runs the actual connecting to the TinyG.

Check out the Google+ page for ChiliPeppr. I posted a couple times over the last 2 years what my full settings are for this 3040 machine for TinyG.

It was $800 + about $200 in shipping, so that added up a bit, but it included the spindle, the power supply, the motors, etc. So compared to other CNC machines its way cheaper or on par and I think it's more rigid for the kind of work I want to do.

No you need to run ChiliPeppr

verishare I place these settings under the cog wheel icon in the Serial Port JSON Server widget inside ChiliPeppr so it sends this Gcode every time ChiliPeppr connects to the port. (X axis is motor 2 chip) $2ma=0 $2po=1 $2mi=4 $2pl=0.75 $2tr=8 $xvm=3000 $xfr=3000 (Y Axis is motor 3) $3mi=4 $3pl=0.75 $3tr=8 $yvm=3000 $yfr=3000 (Z axis is motor 4) $4ma=2 $4tr=4 $4pl=0.6 (A axis is motor 1 chip) $1ma=3

Thanks! The microstepping was off on mine for some reason but all is good now.

Yeah, pretty much. TinyG over USB to the Raspberry Pi. Then I run chilipeppr.com/tinyg from my laptop and connect it to the Serial Port JSON Server running on the Raspberry Pi.

Warndog If you want to make really accurate parts, i.e. a circuit board, the Shapeoko's timing belts are just not good enough. I've tried. You need lead screws. The lead screws are metal so they're rigid. They give you a nice mechanical advantage as well which gives you accuracy and strength. The timing belts on Shapeoko don't give any mechanical advantage. The timing belts also have some level of stretchiness that you see it in the final part. I spent a year trying to get accuracy out of Shapeoko and gave up. Also, the spindle head on the 3040 is almost perfectly rigid with no give. Try pushing against your spindle head on your Shapeoko and you'll see it gives a bit. That give destroys accuracy. This also means you can't really mill aluminum. The thing the Shapeoko is good for is scalability of the frame. If you do large-scale woodworking or acrylic milling then I think the Shapeoko is the way to go because you can deal with accuracy not being amazing. However, if you're into fine detail work, you need to go with something better. If you get a 3040 you need to make sure it uses ball screws. Don't get trapezoidal screws. Also, make sure it's not crap. There's a lot of models out there and some are low-end and some are well done.

Did you ChiliPeppr enable it?

oh solved the problem already , XML file i didt load which is preset/driver for cnc :(

I did not get the PWM to work yet. I tried a few guesses and it didn't work, so I'll have to do more debug on it. I will post the configuration I used, but will likely get that posted inside ChiliPeppr so it's available from a standard pulldown menu to pick global configs like "Standard 3040 CNC Config"

+www.vinylcutters.co.za South Africa I agree that without ChiliPeppr the TinyG board would not be a good way to go, but with ChiliPeppr it changes the game and makes TinyG the right choice. Sticking with the original yoocnc board and thus being stuck with Mach3 is not the way to go in the future. ChiliPeppr is extensible and indeed things like a solder paste dispenser are emerging. A pick and place solution is emerging. Webcam fiducial recognition is in the works. Etc. These are all possible once you get into the browser environment where coding and collaboration are easy.

You're not stuck with Mach3 with a parallel port. LinuxCNC supports parallel ports.

This machine is light years better than Shapeoko because it has ballscrews, is super rigid and square, and you can see the results in the final product. Any timing belt machine will have the lack of rigidity of the belts show up in the final part. The motors are great because you gain a mechanical advantage from the ballscrews. What will break on you during a milling job is the end mill because the motors have so much power from the mechanical advantage of the ballscrews.

+Michael Valentine You could, but you are still stuck in the ancient Mach 3 software. ChiliPeppr is in the browser so it supports all OS's. Mach3 is Windows only. ChiliPeppr is open source. Therefore people can extend it to do whatever they want. There's a user extending it to do pick and place. Another user is adding machine vision via WebRTC. Another user is adding Eagle board import capabilities so you can easily mill PCBs. Mach3 does none of this and isn't open source. ChiliPeppr is the Linux of CNC and is the future of CNC in the maker community.

+ehrichweiss I did in an earlier comment. carving-cnc.com which is now omiocnc.com. Only get ballscrews, not trapezoidal.

+John Lauer did the price go waayyyyyyy up with the new domain name?

Yeah, the price looks $200 more than I remember. I only paid about $800 and with shipping $200 so $1k total. Now it looks like they want $1200. I would look elsewhere. Get ballscrews.

That reminds me. Be careful on ebay because at least one seller has the word "ballscrew" in the title/heading but either actually comes out in the specs as trapezoidal in the body of the auction, or they don't list it at all in the specs and when you ask them they tell you they "goofed".

+dominick luciano TinyG is available at synthetos.com

It's now called omiocnc.com

Thanks

Not sure that's the best approach here given that the e-stop switch on this controller stays depressed when you hit it. That forces the reset button on TinyG low, which keeps TinyG disabled perfectly. Only when you rotate to release this e-stop switch does TinyG reboot itself. So, why waste the z-max input which I'd actually like to use for real as the z-max?

That's ok too I guess, I just didn't think you wanted a reset every time you e-stopped. I think I might have gotten it wrong: xmin,ymin and zmax is "home" and xmax,ymax and zmin is the opposite end of the travels. That would make zmin the one I was thinking about. Will you make a "intro" video for Chilipeppr (step by step for average users - zero to hero) ? My CNC mill is not finished yet. I'm designing a miniature 10cm cubed cnc mill - i.e. I'm not using a Shapeoko. www.realgentlemen.dk/MediaWiki - CNC Mill

I've been using the setup I show in the video for 3 years now and never missed a step. The NEMA23's that come on most 3040 CNC's are rated around 2 amps. Mine were rated at 1.8 amps. TinyG can put out 2.5 amps per winding. So I'm not sure what you mean. When you say the parallel port has faster control, what do you mean? Do you mean it can generate more steps/second? If so, that's not really true at all. The max feed rate on a 3040 or 6040 would be about 5000mm/min. If you run at 8x micro stepping and you need 200 steps x 8 for a full revolution, TinyG can drive to this feed rate, as can most any microcontroller. Maybe help us out with what you mean?

if it works for you then its fine.I had some problems with grbl with not immediate stop and usb disconnecting when spindle turns on .

Grbl is not TinyG.

I've been using it a lot for a couple years with no limit switches and it's never really been a problem. You just set your XYZ zero to your workpiece lower left corner and go. Of course many people do use limit switches, but many have found they're not critical.

Couperin le Grand do you have any video of cutting aluminum? You are doing exactly what I'm trying to achieve. Your experience with the power supply is GREAT feedback. I do want to upgrade the spindle soon so you're right. Even with the motors, if I am pumping out 2A to each motor I'm pulling 6A at some points. I'm driving them at 2.5A even, so you've got me worried already.

John Lauer I do hope I'm mistaken. The two fuses on the power supply board are rated 3A. Would it be risky to install high amperage fuses? One would have to find out the rating of all the diodes and transistors to be sure. There is a second difficulty with upgrading the spindle. The 230 W stock spindle is 50 mm diameter. The 500 W one is 52 mm. If you want 800 W then it's even larger. The spindle clamp is nearly exactly 50 mm and won't accept anything bigger. The spindle clamp is integrated with the ballscrew nut and linear bearing housing, so to upgrade the spindle, you'd have to replace the whole block. Some other models from carving-cnc.com have bigger motors, and it might be possible that the ballscrew nut and linear bearing positions are the same as the CNC 3040/3020. And then it's another question if they'd sell you just the block. I don't know if it's possible to saw off the spindle clamp, or to enlarge it, but I struggle to see how that could be done without losing any perpendicularity. I'll be cutting more aluminium in the next few days and I'll try to post something. I'm using a 2 mm endmill to cut out shapes from 1.5 mm aluminium plates. Feed rate 1000 mm/min, 0.07 mm pass depth, full spindle power. No missed steps whatsoever. The aluminium plate isn't very flat, and at times the first cut into the surface must have been as deep as 0.2 mm or something like that. It took it well, and still no missed steps, though the noise scared me a bit as I'm a total noob. The machine can be pushed to go faster, I think. I'll be trying the auto-level feature next.

Couperin le Grand Here's a spindle you could upgrade to, but that's about it given the 52mm diameter of the 3040 I have. www.amazon.com/LD52GF-400W-Engraving-Milling-Spindle-Controller/dp/B00CLL84A4/ref=pd_sim_sbs_hi_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=0HNP6GZMN62K9XHMQ794 I think I'd just run this from an alternate power supply. I would tap into the PWM controller so TinyG could drive it. Then I'm just not worried about any other inner guts of the controller electronics that came with the 3040.

Are you sure the 3040 spindle diameter is 52 mm? According to carving-cnc.com, both the 3040 and the 3020 come with the 230 W spindle, and mine measures 50 mm. I'd be surprised if the 230 W spindle exists in both 50 and 52 mm!

Couperin le Grand Yeah, I measured it yesterday with my calipers. It's 51.87mm, so 52mm. Also, the model number on carving-cnc.com of my 3040 is technically 3040Z+D52 and that D52 means "diameter 52mm" of the spindle.

Well, it sort of misses the point that CNC control boards are now readily available to offload all stepper motor step generation signals to a separate microcontroller rather than relying on the PC to do it. It really frees you and your PC up from the processing. Think about it like this--you're giving your CNC machine it's own brain and then your PC is just sending it Gcode and letting it do the hard work.

You won't get an argument from me there. I was just baffled at why people in (been watching a fair number of 6040 themed videos the last few days as I plan to purchase one) so many videos keep saying parallel ports are no longer available. That being said you are right CNC control boards are readily available and can be a good option depending on your situation. But then really how is that fundamentally different from using a computer as your controlboard. With the latter I would argue you even have the benefit of a more comprehensive user interface than with a CNC control board that usually is somewhat limited in that regard. You have a web interface with the Chilipeppr you say. True, but I will admit it scares me a little that there is so much 'distance' between that interface and the machine. Which brings me to another concern I have. I am a little disappointed (and keep in mind I had not heard of Chilipeppr until your video) not just in the case of Chilipeppr but also many similar solutions such as for 3d printers, about the way the components communicate with each other. It is a mystery to me why not more of these solutions employ more resilient infrastructure give the rise of IoT and cloud technology. Correct me if I understood the concept wrong here but with Chilipeppr you run a daemon on your RPI that essentially allows the hardware to be driven remotely? Would it not make more sense to use some form of resilient messaging for this? Or hell even go all the way and use Azure or some other IoT cloud. Maybe I am just overthinking it, occupational hazard for someone like me who has been developing and working with IT systems for 30 years.

Well, once ChiliPeppr loads in your browser, everything is local as if it were an app on the desktop, meaning it doesn't go back out to the Internet. The local browser simply talks to Serial Port JSON Server (the daemon) which could be on your same PC or something like a Raspberry Pi and then that talks over USB to the CNC. I would say that's pretty much the same as a desktop app talking over a parallel port in terms of simplicity.

Ahhh thanks for that clarification. that does sound better. For some reason I thought it was driven remotely, so you could run/checkup on your job from anywhere over the internet. Which come to think would make very little sense really. Guess I should have done more research on Chilipeppr :)

You will have to run an old version of Windows to get a working port. Win10 will not play nice. Another option is to run one of those UC100 motion controller things inline. A USB to serial adapter will do nothing for you but break your heart. When your all done jumping through hoops for a port you can buy and run Mach3 for it and you should be ok.

I think the future is the other direction. Your CNC machine should really be like any IoT device, which means it should just have its own microcontroller and be available on your network via WiFi. This is what you can achieve today with TinyG and Raspberry Pi, but if you look at other CNC controllers like Cohesion boards used on lasers, it even has WiFi built-in. The age of the monolithic PC controlling a CNC is in the past. However, I will say that ChiliPeppr is a great step forward on software, but there's still work to do to keep refining it. Mach 3 is commercial software and thus there was a revenue model for it. In this new age of IoT CNC controllers, there's no commercial software for driving the boards. This means we're at the whim of the community to solve bugs/features.

I agree actually, but still there is a ton of very good dirt cheap parallel board controllers out there. I just got an entire 4 axis kit with nema 23 steppers for $188 to upgrade my little sherline mills aging cnc setup that doesn't work with any modern CNC software (3rd party controller/driver not the Sherline controller). I bought a JT1900 motherboard for $65 with the parallel port built in. I am currently using linuxcnc which is pretty much open source mach3. Linux also has open source CNC and CAM software. The problem however is... Linux. I guess my point was you had a perfectly working parallel based controller and replaced it with a $130 TinyG. Mach 3 is only $175 for the full version so I don't think your money spent is justified being Auto Desk Fusion 360 CAD/CAM is free for hobbyist or business under $100,000. Fusion 360 and mach 3 is what I will be using once I get my larger CNC mill setup. Thats just an insanely powerful combination for only $175 mach 3 license. There also much cheaper USB controllers out there that are pretty good. This is just a money based comment though. Nothing against you vid or the equipment. It is still very interesting to see what you did with the tinyg.

Mach3 is unfortunately not the solution to all problems, there are certain areas where it does shine but there are areas were its severly flawed aswell. Mach3 has a long standing bug in its motion planner which only shows for rather complex short segmented 2.5D Gcodes. This bug instantly stalls my machine and has destroyed many parts along the way. So im actually looking at the feasability of going the reverse path, leaving my trusted mach3 lpt setup over to something more modern - g2core / chillipepper. There are still many questions for me to be answered first but i think its possible. Im not sure if i agree with the mindset that a cnc should be amongst iot devices, its still a large very dangerous tool that can burn through 10k $ in less than a second if not handled properly.

Awesome to hear. I think you'll love TinyG's motion planning.

About $1K

The term engraving is used a lot to describe CNC machines, but this will do aluminum, carbon fiber, even mild steel if you go really slow. This thing is way more rigid than most CNC's out there in the maker community, so i think it's fair to say it's much more than engraving. It's no Tormach or Hass though.

wow... so with the tinyg, this will work just like a shapeoko? or u need the gshield?

All you need is TinyG. All the stepper controllers are built into the TinyG. No need for the gshield.

whats the difference? if u don't mind

The difference between Gshield and TinyG?

+www.vinylcutters.co.za South Africa I've searched far and wide and tried them all. TinyG is the only way to go.

It's the size of the milling platform. 3020 is smallest. 3040 is double the width. 6040 is even bigger. Same design, just scaled up.

Ok that's what I thought but wasnt sure, thanks

30X40cm cutting bed. 6040 is 60X40 ect.