Options for linux?

I have researched this heavily on the forums and have my own solutions in place that allow me to operate the shapeoko with linux. In most circumstances however I use the carbide software on my wifes mac laptop from an ease of use standpoint. Carbide create is wonderfully simple as is carbide motion for simple projects. I hoped to learn if either of these tools will receive any support on Linux? I remember a while back that there might be a version of carbide motion? I dont mind using the mac to design in carbide create but I would love to send my designs to be cut by a linux machine(even possible an arm based sbc) Is this at all possible? Even a way to export gcode from carbide create.

1 Like

I suspect something is coming soon…I don’t know, I’m guessing. They’re working on a “Carbide Connect” product, which sounds like a little linux box. My understanding is that it’s a SBC running carbide motion, and you connect via a web browser. Given that it hasn’t been released yet, that might help, might not. Given there have been numerous asks for a linux friendly carbide motion, one might pop out of that project?

You can’t export gcode from carbide create, but you can from carbide motion. The catch is that the machine needs to be connected to the SO3 to run carbide motion. Load the file into carbide motion, double click on the file name after it’s loaded, and you can get to an editor with the unencrypted file in it. Copy, paste elsewhere. It’s kind of a lousy answer, but it does work.

1 Like

To be specific, you’ll connect the Carbide Connect board to your machine, then connect to it over a network and control it using a web browser.

1 Like

That sounds like a plan! Thats what I thought I had heard. Will this tool be open to be deployed on other hardware? I’ve been setting up wine on my computer to see if I can run the carbide tools that way. if I can, i’ll see about hosting zip with the presets.

1 Like

I suspect that since Carbide Connect will be able to decrypt .egc files from MeshCAM and Carbide Create that it will be specific to Carbide 3D hardware to connect to / control — pretty much any system should be able to connect to it (and I hope send files to it — or maybe files will be on a Micro SD card?)

File sending works fine with the CM4 web service, so I suspect that’s what will actually get used for this. (connect to port http://whatever_or_localhost:8080 on the machine your run CM4 on, and you’ll see a very familiar looking interface…)

2 Likes

Good to know this…

They’re a ways off yet but Autodesk is working on a browser version of Fusion 360…and yes, it will work on Linux. It was my understanding that the initial release was going to be released this month but the CAM module will not be active yet. Ive signed up for the beta test and have fooled around with it a few times. Can’t wait. Im a Linux user myself.

Sweet! lol i messed around with getting carbide create and motion workign in wine. They both run just fine but i can’t get it to see the machine. Still looking into it. wine isn’t notoriously good at usb devices.

2 Likes

Had no luck with usb devices. I will say that the initial setup took about 10 minutes.
install wine -> run CarbideCreate.exe (installs like normal windows app, works great) -> run CarbideMotion.exe (installs like normal windows app, starts just fine.)

but it wont see the usb device. I have done some research on this to look at how others have connceted thier serial devices. it connects as a ttyACM0 which is the same as normal arduino. There are a number of cases online of users making this connection with older versions of wine.

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2177924

Although they run into other issues with other parts of their apps. If anyone else wants to take a go at this it appears that you just need to make an link from /dev/ttyACM0 to ~/.wine/dosdevices/COM1 before starting the app and it should pick it up. Hasn’t been the case for me.

ln -s /dev/ttyACM0 ~/.wine/dosdevices/COM1

1 Like

Just a random thought here but many times in ‘new’ (going to say new because I am old) linux distros normal users do not have permissions to access ttyACMs by default. Might want to swing about and check that your user account is included in the group with access to that device.

1 Like

Thank you Phil, I had forgotten to express that part. I added myself to dialout group as well as changing the permissions on that device to 777 (both seem to be fixes for arduino users)

Couldn’t get it to work :frowning: so after a little bit of poking around but i landed on jscut (http://jscut.org/) and cncjs. JScut is about as simple as it gets with 2d vector cuts and has been perfect for making gcode for cncjs which is my favorite tool right now for doing cuts (has a visualizer of what it is cutting and time estimation stuff!) Seems to be about as useful a workflow as the carbide tools although the javascript is never without ui glitches. Once i got my code running though it seems to be about as dependable. Haven’t done anything too complex yet. I have to recommend it for linux users doing 2d cuts though(much better than meshcam or paying for software).

2 Likes

Great you found something which works!

Both of those are mentioned on the wiki rather perfunctorily. Added your post as a footnote on the first, and as a note for use w/ Linux on the latter — if you can think of anything which should be added, please let us know!

1 Like

Where in the wiki did you add it? I had seen JScut on the wiki before but it lacked any extra description that merited a click. I found it while googling more tools. I am still not seeing any changes to the wiki though. It only shows up on the cam page.

As I noted, it was just a footnote for the first:

|2.5D
[http://jscut.org/ jscut][Shapeoko CNC Router, Rigid, Accurate, Reliable, and Affordable]
Converts SVG files to CNC cutting paths. GPL, source available on [GitHub - tbfleming/jscut: In-browser CAM package github].[Options for linux? - #13 by swiftmas]

and just a brief note for the latter

http://cheton.github.io/cnc.js/ — a web-based CNC milling controller for the Arduino running GRBL. cncjs - npm Raspberry Pi instructions: Shapeoko 3 XXL + Raspberry Pi 3 + CNCJS + Tablet Use with Linux: Options for linux? - #13 by swiftmas

— please feel free to edit the quoted text as desired and I’ll post / update it. Thanks!