DIY Arduino CNC Machine with GRBL Shield - Setup Tutorial! 

After MANY HOURS of SEARCHING for this part of the diy project, YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE I FOUND THAT GETS RIGHT TO THE POINT. THANK YOU. SUBSCRIBED!!

Thought I'd let you know this video was so great it became the starting point of the building of my own diy CNC router back when you posted it. It has been running for a while now, and I still try to make upgrades to it, just for kicks. I use it primarly for woodworking, and I still don't get tired of watching it cut through wood. Thanks!

Set this up for myself, following along, and it all worked great! Excited to continue! Thanks John, really enjoying your content!

Wow! Got it working first shot! By far the best no bull, walk through there is out there! Great work and thanks for taking the time to put this out there for the rest of us out here!

One of the BEST no-nonsense, full explanation, "Lets build this together" videos I've seen on this subject period. Great job! If I could subscribe again I would but I've been a subscriber for months now.

Thanks for the great video. I have an Uno with Cnc Shield 3.0. This is my first CNC machine and I can't wait to start cutting. Your video is helping me get it going.

Stumbled on your channel looking for info on diy cnc. Brilliantly clear instructions, well done. Now I want to automate everything!!!

I really want to thank you for this video! Your explanation made me finally understand how to flash grbl on arduino and I could build my first, tiny cnc machine! Really, thank you very much! :)

Great video!! I'm going to get the shield, steppers, and Arduino to get this project up and running! Keep the videos coming !

thank you, I have been looking for the method to get gerber data into the arduino cnc sheild with no luck untii i found this video. now I can go ahead with my project. thanks again.

Great video, one of the few I've watched even more than Harry Potter! Have an idea but no idea how to go about building it. This video and others by you have given me at least a basic understanding of what might need to happen to make my idea reality. Knowing I still have much to learn I look forward to more of your excellent tutorials and explanations. I also very much appreciate the source list you provide in your comments. Thank you, sincerely. Steve

A perfect video NYC CNC!!!! Such class from start to finish. 1st class all the way.

Bravo! Just ran into your series and I am very impressed. I do arduino and other projects with my children and I'm leading it to a cnc machine. This is exactly the kind of tutorials I was looking for. Thank you so much!

Huge thanks. One of the best examples I've seen on YT.

A good and informative video. Btw. you should never change the jumpers or plug/unplug motors while the stepper driver is powered, as there is a very good chance of destroying the chip by this.

Great video! I'm really looking forward to seeing these projects come together. I just finished building a small servo driven drawing arm, and I've been trying to learn more about using gcode to get images into a usable format that I can send to my controller. the g-code sender has lots of promise. thanks!

Cool ! This video answer all my questions about setting up my own CNC ! Awesome !

that stepper motor resistance spindle trick is clever and appreciated!

Thanks, John. You are a genius and a great teacher. Just learned that "gooey" isn't the end result of Pepsi spilled on my keyboard!

Thanks john for your very helpfull vidio's

How timely! I just bought a GRBL Shield a couple of months ago to play around with while building a small router/engraver out of aluminum. I'll be watching for future episodes! Keep up the great vids!

Fantastic video once again. Seriously every time I see a new video posted I think, "I'll watch it later." And once I finally do watch it, I'm like, "Why did I wait?! I can't wait for the next one!" I'm in the process of assembling components for a CNC machine and so happy you did a step-by-step. All to often these kinds of videos skip the process of showing what we'll need and where we can find it (along with a demonstration along the way). Perfect video! I can't wait for the next one in this series!

Thank you for sharing this tutorial. I am making a circuit board milling device/ conductive ink printer and you REALLY helped me along.. Thank you! :)

Writing you from germany.. Great and vey helpful videos, good explained. Thank you for those videos

Can you make more of these videos? You get to the point fast with no bs great video btw.

Thank you very much for your informative video. I know that this video was posted Dec, 2014 but I am sure that most of this is still valid. I have been watching other videos on doing this and I definitely want to try this. Starting out this way would be an affordable solution for me and I could use this project to learn more and become more confident to try more complicated projects. Thank you for your time and efforts in producing such a great video.

thank you! even though lots of technologies are different now i still learn a lot on how to DIY a CNC machine

Holy cow. I am really interested in Arduino. Never heard of it til a few months ago. Explored a tad bit online and your videos. Never touched a stepper motor but im aware of them in CNC machines. I'd like to get the materials together finally and....mess with them, especially Arduino. In the short end of a goal, I'd like to be able to do engraving. This and your Part 2 video really did it for me. Im on board. Its cheaper than I had ever thought. I figure I have to start somewhere. Maybe a few months down the road I can actually run some worthy youtube videos about it myself.

I can't wait to spend more money, thanks John. I've always wanted to build a CNC machine

Your videos are great. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.

:) great job on sharing and explaining the basics, arduino may be the ticket for some smaller cnc projects :) . Keep up the great videos.

Great video. Thanks very much for posting and sharing..

thanks John for every helpful information

Love your videos. Always looking forward to the next one. Could you give me some info on the equipment and software you use to make your videos? Thanks for all ways sharing.

nice, thanks. Speaking of steppers Iv started contacting people about possibly adding second motor and making the tilting 4th axis into a 5 axis for the tormach, lets see where that takes us. Cant remember if I mentioned making a fixture to attach 70-90k quality pencil grinder with chucked engraver bit to the nose of the tormach for plate engraver its on the list maybe it will work fine.

John you are my Pimp Daddy right now!!! I don't know how I missed watching this part of your series, but I'm sure glad that I took the time tonight versus zoning out to a magazine. I've had 2 Zombie projects (they just won't die) bouncing around in my head for the last 18 months, and I wasn't quite sure how to integrate them into the fabric of reality. Now with the Arduino (which I have a couple kicking around) + the GRBL shield I see a clear path to functional prototyping. Shit! I have no excuse but to crack the whip on myself and get these things off the ground as soon as my current production run tails off. Seriously though- you must NOT sleep much. I live darn near a parallel life and I can only imagine the hours that you are putting in outside of the workshop just to keep up. Keep living the dream man...you continuously impress the hell out of me with what you are pulling off in the Buckeye state (I'm your neighbor to the North these days LOL). Live long and prosper- and horde 5.56 :-).

Another great video! Keep them coming!

Great and good explained video! Does this also works for cnc lathe with two steppers?

Thanks for the great video, it has help me get my head around a few things.

Great job! Have had you problems with electromagnetic interferences? If so, how did you solve them?

Finally! Got to see one of your videos before it hit the magic 301+ count. I LOVE these smaller projects. Home CNC lathe here I come. :-D I plan on combining some of the parts from the DIYCNC site... the 640ozin motors I believe. And I am sure you have already heard this, but when engraving, micro stepping helps with detail, but causes an exponential decrease in torque. The more steps, the more dramatic the falloff. For example, at an 8 micro, you have about 20% of rated torque, which can be even higher losses in cheaper steppers. For micro engraving, works great. For doing the lines on these plates, may not be of any use, especially when you figure in that each step is (based on what I saw so far) .0025" or smaller using the gearing and movement mechanisms. That is far less than what most humans can notice. Also, when microstepping, GREAT detail must be paid to the rigidity of the machine. I have learned this from a small engraver project in an engineering class. We used cheap ASME rods, 2 start, 4 TPI. We had a 128 step motor, and a 2:1 reduction, giving each FULL step a .001 resolution at full torque. The frame we built was only capable of about a .005 shift, so we over engineered one part and overlooked the frame. Fun, and eye opening! 24 and 48 volt power supplies can be pretty easy to come by, and as I typically say, buy once cry once. a 25% increase in cost to futureproof is ALWAYS worth it to me. I may not be "cheap" but I try to be Frugal.

This is great! Looking forward to the series. I've been using GRBL and GRBL Shield for about 2yrs on my home made CNC with no complaints. I recommend upgrading to the latest firmware as it has independent X,Y and Z feedrates and other improvements. Also, especially if you want to customize your machine interface, check out the good work of John Lauer and Jarret Luft with ChiliPeppr . Pretty awesome stuff.

Very Nice Voice & Tutorial And Thank you Very Much.

Thank you for this Tutorial, can we control Adafruit shield using g-code?

Awesome video, what is the benefit or advantage to jumping the pins to give different rotation rates?

FYI: Bigger steppers have bigger coil inductance. Inductance is a source of impediance that will restrict the amount of current. If you need to drive your steppers faster, they may start to skip steps because of the inductance impedance. If you need to operate your steppers at higher speed while maintaining torque for your load you will need a power supply with a higher voltage. For robotics or machine automation I would recommend at least a 48VDC power supply if not higher. Otherwise I believe you may be disappointed by the performance of the steppers. Although I don't know how high voltage a GRBL shield will operate. I've used gecko stepper drivers for my projects which can operate up to about 80VDC.

thank you for your videos, i like this shield and i know i can control 3 axis for a cnc machine, but how do i control the spindle through pwm signal?

tnx man! best tutorial, enyoing your videos. keep up good work

Amazing! I didn't realize the software is finally catching up to the arduino. That cnc program is amazing to get up and going fast.

very nice work you are doing here! i have a question, if you fit bigger motors will you fry the arduino? thank you!

Hi John, That's interesting to see the actual future apps, Hope to live long enough to actually try everything I find interesting... Also a quick interrogation, don't you need to actually monitor the actual position of the moving part, cause as we know a stepper motor can and will eventually slip or miss? like this stuff thanks, Pierre For an app I'm thinking of a snow blower guiding device, mostly today....! lol

hello, you got some nice videos thanks for them : ) i have 1 question, my diy cnc that i am building is now using 32 micro steps. is it stronger if i set it to 16 steps? i realy hope you can help me. thank you

Thank you, good tutorial, my question is how far can be the maximum work area, for example I need axis X 1500mm and axis Y 2500mm, is that possible with Arduino?

great video thanks John

Thanx for the perfect explanation. And it was a Great video......

Sweet video! question: is there a rule of thumb folks use for sizing lead screws and stepper motors for various lengths of lead screws? like would 1/2" lead screw with a Nema 17 stepper be too small for a four foot length of movement?

i love these kind of projects :)

awesome video, love the channel. what type of c are you using to run this project. i am going to be purchasing everything needed for this project this weekend. haven't seen any videos of metal being cut with it. have you done any yet?

awesome job! i just love anything robotic. i was wondering...can you set up more than 3 axis using GRBL? i would need 5 or six axis to set up a multi purpose Cartesian robotic arm any help would be greatly appreciated. thank you for your time!

Hey, you are awesome! Can you tell me please what program do you use to create projects for the cnc....

.Amazing work!!! Thank you for share your time and knowlage. Really usefull. My father has a industrial milling machine, but it is manual. How can i convert it into an automatic milling (CNC) using Arduino. Best Regards and thank you.

Hi man, once again nice vid. I am planning to build my first CNC Router. I was just wondering coz most of the vids I see on youtube for large cnc machines uses breakout board - stepper driver combination as opposed to the GRBL setup you showed. What do you suggest I use.

Hi! How do i connect a stepper to the coupler? My hobby stepper shaft is smaller than the coupler hole 😔

hi mate having trouble running the universal g-code sender it wont open up like yours does wont let me open a jar file what do you suggest to use to open that I am running windows 7 64 bit

This is so awesome, we really want to try this. Problem is we have a Mac, will this set up work with a Apple Mac ?

Very well explained!

You may have covered my question but how do you find out in the software or how do you tell it how far the max travel is and give it a starting point?? Ps.. I’m thinking of building a diy CNC myself but to my own specifications, and really that’s the only thing I’m confused about.. Thanks!!

Brilliant. Thank you very much !!!

Nice work!

Dear NYC CNC, FIrst of all, I cant thank enough for what you have been sharing to us. I am a mechanical guy from Vietnam! I very much enjoyed your online course even some are sold out! I kindly have one question for you (or anybody here). I am trying to host some online courses (virtual classroom for 6 students average) and trying to use BLACKBOARD but I dont know how I can purchase it even spending the whole day at their offical web! I know NYC CNC are using blackboard training courses! Please share if you guys know about this! Thank you a lot!

It is really helpful. Thanks.

Hi, great video. Can you show where I can set in the arduino code the steps/unit value? Thank you.

Great video. Is there where i can find to download your excel sheet or where to see the formulas ? i want to build mine but i use metric sistem not imperial. Thank you !

Excellent video.

hi, can I ask if i can use the step motor that you mention on this project with the kit i have, and if i can use a 24vdc for it.. CNC V3 Shield + UNO R3 Arduino Compatible Board + 4 PCS TI DRV8825 StepStick Stepper Drivers. just start to build a small cnc router. thank you. great video tutorial.

I look forward to seeing this project completed! I have experience with Arduino. I also reload ammunition. This project is speaking to me!

Hello, while processing the g-code file I created with UGS in CNC, the CNC axes go to the place they need to go very fast when the carving work of a point is finished and trying to go to a different point (idle acceleration), which causes tooth skipping and the coordinate is distorted. I wonder if I need to adjust the grbl settings or the g-code file to reduce the speed of the axes in these transitions (idle speed).

Great video, well done. Keep up the good work. One question though. Tried to access the drawing information via the link contained in your comments (Patreon). It stalled. Do you have an alternative way to access the SolidWorks model?

man the trick with wire resistance is so money! Thanks.

When You hook the motors up to the board (Im going to use cnc sheild) how do you know which is the XYZ axis? Cheers

How hard do you think it would be to add sensors to the arduino with the GRBL shield in place? I am thinking of making a CNC router with a self leveling base by using linear actuators and a IR range sensor or an ultrasonic sensor to gauge the relative inclination of the plane. I will be using a Arduino mega so it should have a few extra pins accessible.

Enjoying your videos. Is it possible to use the Arduino GRBL to control my VFD for Spindle control also?

Hey, great video. Do you have any idea about what could be wrong if the motor spins the same way regardless if you tell it to go x+ or x-? Thanks.

hi, could you please tell me what is the max size of the bed that grbl supports? im starting to design my own cnc but for it i should first know the max size cause i might design something that grbl cannot support

thank you for the explanation was helpful for me. their is a point i would like to know it. how can a set homing and point zero on grbl and arduino and can we run arduino with grbl on Mach3 and how please be generous with another explanation video

Does the Nema 17 stepper motor rotate both ways by itself. Or there are some specific motors which rotate both ways?

In this case can we use the universal G code sender to control the stepper instead of using code from arduino, like you did on the other video of controlling stepper motors!

Hi. Great tutorial. I have an arduino mega and a ramps 1.4. Will the GRBL software still work. if not what would you advise. The arduino software that im using is for 3d printers.

Hello, thanks for the tutorial. Is it possible to drive 3 nema 34 with this driver? Or can I combine ST-M5045 with this driver? I would like to build a large machine and use 3 nema 34 and arduino, but i do not know if it is possible. Thank you.

couldn't be better. thanks man

Does grbl flash to the shield? Or the uno? If you had an uno with separate tb6600 drivers would the process be exactly the same?

Nice one, I have an Arduino Uno coming for Christmas and plan to play with steppers in the near future. One thing I don't hear much of is protecting ones PC when using and Arduino from any feedback up the USB Cable. Been contemplating the purchase of a USB Isolator with an ADuM4160 chip. Have you had any issues with your PC John when using your Aduinos?

I heard reloading and CNC and had to subscribe. :D

thank you for your tutorial bro

the stepper motor i have bought has 4 wires. and the plugs on the grbl shield has 4 plugs. can i connect the stepper motor no mater witch color on the grbl plugs?

great video, thank you.

What's the use of the ammunition box? Are you panning on starting a war?

I am thinking of making a CNC like machine that I will use to write stuff on large sheets of paper (about 30 inches by 26 inches). I plan to Use an arduino board for the project. What advice do you have for me ?

hi sir, this is very good tutorial, i want to build cnc drill machine for pcb , how much is speed and accuracy of arduino based cnc machine.

Can you use Ramps arduino Sheild for this or does gbrl need this Shéild ?