The GRBL Project

My daughter got married this past weekend. I made a number of things for the wedding on my Avid Pro4848 powered by a T41U5XBB running grblHAL. The items were: a welcome sandwich board (40"x30"), a large table assignment board for 110 people (48"x36"), and table numbers (5" high) for 12 tables. The sandwich board had a 24"x6"x9" flower box, and the table assignment board had 3 small flower boxes. It was a big project and took about 10 days total, though CNC machine time was on

The other day, I received an anxious message from a friend. His CNC router was randomly stopping in the middle of every job. Over 5 years ago, I helped him build his machine using one of my Teensy 4.1-based controller boards, so I was familiar with his setup. It had been running fine since then and he claimed to have not changed anything on it. I recalled that even though his board had the Ethernet kit installed, he had opted to use USB to connect. "It works, and Ethernet sou

One of the challenges of using a CNC router is V Carving on an uneven surface. Often, the solution is to surface the workpiece first, but there are many cases where it is not possible. For example, carving a pattern on a handle, putting a name on a barrel stave, etching a PCB (see the end of the article for some details), or engraving on a warped or non-flat workpiece. We are V Carving some large signs on 9 mm Baltic Birch, which is not perfectly flat, and getting them to be

When you need to join a stepper or servo motor to a screw shaft, you use a coupler. There are several types available. Jaw (Spider) Couplers Design: Two metal hubs with interlocking teeth separated by a rubber or polyurethane insert (the "spider"). Pros: Great at absorbing vibration, handles angular and parallel misalignments, cheap. Cons: Very soft spiders can introduce tiny amounts of backlash or wind-up under heavy dynamic loads. Best Use: 3D printers and DIY CNC routers u

Sigh. After the tariff whiplash of last year, I was hoping costs would stabilize. Unfortunately, tariffs never seem to go away, as evident with the recent trade war saber rattling. But, there are more pressures on pricing our products. With the continuing high cost of petroleum, shipping prices have risen. The cost of shipping a batch of boards to us from our board house has risen by over 30% in the last few months. If history is any indicator, those costs won't drop when t

One of the first features of ioSenderV2 you will probably see is Connect. You find it in the upper left-hand corner of the ioSender window. This allows you to do the obvious - connect to your grblHAL controller. But it also allows you to connect after rebooting or power cycling the board. And, it allows you to switch between Ethernet and USB. Also, the Ethernet connection dialog has a Scan option - it will scan for connected Ethernet-based boards and populate the IP address a

A new version of ioSender is near. It's still a work in progress but very usable. It was forked from the original ioSender by an old friend, Steven Wood. He has done a lot of work to make it friendly to beginners as well as experienced CNC users. It has a lot of new features, but the one you will see right off the bat is Reconnecting, an often-requested feature. You don't need to exit V2 to reconnect. You can also switch between USB and Ethernet without exiting. Another welco

Several customers have asked about using low profile sockets with the Teensy 4.1 which are reputed to be more vibration resistant than the taller sockets we include in the basic assembly kit for the T41U5XBB. ProtoSupplies has a nice kit with the Teensy, low profile pins and sockets. This does not supplant the basic assembly kit (AKA USB assembly kit) that we sell. So, if you want low profile sockets, you will still need to order the T41U5XBB with the Assembly Kit. Courtesy o

There seems to be a lot of confusion (and a range of prices) surrounding the WizNet W5500-based Ethernet module we use for the RP23CNC. Hopefully, this will help clear some of that up. When WizNet introduced the W5500 networking chip, they also introduced an evaluation module, the Wiz550io. It was rather large and had an odd arrangement of pins - 6 on one side and 8 on the other. But it was popular because it allowed adding Ethernet to a design via SPI, and the designer didn'

DIN Rails are an excellent resource for system builders, offering flexible organization for electronics cabinets. Many devices, such as power supplies, relays, and conditioning circuits, can be mounted easily without the need for drilling holes. However, the components that come with these rails often have a premium price. Moreover, adapters are necessary for mounting components that lack a DIN Rail interface. The good news is that if you have access to a 3D printer, you can