I’m looking to use a more capable control than CM which offers similar functionality as more industrial cnc controls. After much research here, it sounds like the best option is CNCjs. However, I couldn’t find much around this particular combination.
I’d like to gain a better understanding of what’s involved in the setup and execution of CNCjs with the SO5 Pro and if it has the following capabilities:
3d touch probe
Jog remote
Multiple WCS memory
Multiple tool offset memory
Wear compensation
Mid-program restarts
Macros
Subprograms
Currently using the Carbide router with BitRunner, F360 for CAD/CAM.
Is there a specific post processor that is recommended for CNCjs/SO5? Should I expect to tweak gcode/create macros in order to gain some of the standard features within CM (tool change, tool setter, etc)?
Will grbl settings need to be modified on the Carbide control board to obtain the capabilities above?
Thanks in advance for any guidance and information!
AFAIK, some of what you’re asking just isn’t supported in grbl. AFAIK, grbl doesn’t support multiple tool offset memory or wear compensation. Macros are a definite “yes” in CNCjs as they are the mechanism that allows you to handle any probing (including the bitsetter).
CNCjs doesn’t support mid-program restarts or subprograms (although I’m guessing at what you mean by subprogram).
Multiple WCS are supported but I think it is a “it depends” answer for how it will work for you. AFAIK, no one has added support for using the bitsetter with multiple WCS. If that’s what you wanted then you’d have to take care of what it yourself. Actually, pretty much whatever you were attempting to use WCS for is something that you’d have to build yourself.
3d touch probe works great but you’ll need to figure out how to manage the zero position. Instead of probing the bitsetter on my S4Pro, I probe the case of the bitsetter with the touch probe and use a manually computed offset distance (probe length vs. button height).
You might also take a look at GSender. It was developed from CNCJs and incorporated many of the macros that you need to add yourself in CNCJs while still allowing you to add any additional macros.
I will say that I personally really like CNCjs better. I originally used gSender (it works better on the small tablet display that I was using) but as soon as I got a full sized display I switched to CNCjs. I find that gSender is working to make common things simple whereas I really want I barebones display that makes it easy for me to create the automation that I want via the macros.
I have never tried UGS because it sounded like the support for macros would make it hard to support all the probing I wanted. I could have been wrong about that though.