forked from zapmaker/GrblHoming
-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 0
/
README
484 lines (412 loc) · 23.7 KB
/
README
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
---- GrblController ----
********************************************************************************
Since July 2014, we no longer have any news Zpamaker !!
It was he who ensured the development for Linux, Mac OX, Win and the provision
of various executables on his personal website.
Pending his return, I can offer you experimental versions include a 3D viewer
in the directory : https://github.com/zapmaker/GrblHoming/tree/Letartare
I unfortunately only provides an executable for Win32.
'Hezhao' has prepared the versions for Mac OX 10.x (GC and GCV).
WE GROUPED ALL BINARIES AVALAIBABLE in RELEASES.
LETARTARE
********************************************************************************
GrblController is a gcode sender, monitor and homing tool for GRBL for
Mac, Windows and Linux systems written using the Qt Desktop Framework in C++.
Enhanced by Zapmaker. Kosme did a great deal of excellent foundation work on this
project.
Version 3.0 is a near-complete rewrite of the C++ code fixing all known bugs.
The other major enhancement is native Mac OSX support (including older 32 bit Intel 10.5).
The code was tested with real milling projects using the Shapeoko and works
pretty well. For a list of possible future enhancements, see file TODO.
Prebuilt binaries/installers can be found on github's download section for this
project (GrblHoming). Alternately, if you download the (a) Qt SDK from Nokia or
(b) the Qt source from Qt Project along with the standalone Qt Creator, you can
build from source.
Details on how to do this can be found here:
http://zapmaker.org/
V3.6.1
Executable release rollup
IMPORTANT: Manual/Jog control defaults to new mode which doesn't update the position.
This was done to ensure that jog motions are as fast as possible. However, if you want
to have the original 3.5.1 and earlier behavior, go to Tools | Options | Display
and change radio button to "Always Request but without Idle Check". Sending files
still updates position, it is only manual/jog that does not.
V3.6
Enhancements
- Options dialog is now tabbed to better fit widgets
- Ability to handle 4th axis as either A, B, or C (requires correct grbl version for axis),
please see https://github.com/zapmaker/GrblHoming/issues/56 and
https://github.com/LETARTARE/Grbl_with_Arduino/tree/master/Grbl845Mega2560
which is the A,B,C,U,V,W axes grbl variant.
- LETARTARE: Added UVW axes
- #45: Added ability to completely or partially turn off querying position from grbl to
help improve responsiveness. The new default is to disable waiting for idle before a
jog or manual command, which speeds up those operations. Additional, you can
completely turn it off position reporting during jog or manual control which will
result in light-greyed LCD numbers. A button to query the position has been
added, which will provided up-to-date position at the time the button is pushed.
Look in Options | Display tab for new button options. You can also set the rate
at which the query takes place from 0.5-10 seconds, if it is enabled. Setting a time
that is too long may result in the system waiting too long to retrieve the final position
before control is handed back. Also, the current position dot on the Visualizer turns
from red to green when the position is not accurately known to match the color of the path.
Bug fix
- Fixed fourth axis adjust buttons and coordinate display greyed out when they shouldn't
be (under specific operating circumstances).
V3.5.1
Enhancements
- Made subtle modifications to the command preload when sending a file so that the
command queue on grbl is as full as possible. Previously we were depleting the
queue and then filling it again. This has possible negative performance implications,
although testing shows them to be negligible, probably because we immediately send
a command after the last ok is received.
- The status list view now supports only a maximum of 200 items when active. This was
done for the slower processors like the raspberry pi to prevent excessive CPU usage
when many commands lines exist in a file. When the user grabs the scrollbar, all
items are restored back into the view.
- A new progress bar has been added showing the current items in the grbl queue during
a file send. If the number of items for some reason drops to 0 the label text will
flash red. For this 0 count to occur is a very rare event.
- Added the ability to set the delay between sending of characters to grbl. The theory
is that grbl can drop characters if the sending computer is very fast. There is still
some debate on whether this is happening, so I provided the ability to set this value
in the options from 0 to 20 ms. Note: The default of 0 ms delay is back, like in 3.4.6
and unlike in 3.5 which has a hardcoded 10 ms delay.
Bug fix
- Modified the status window redraw to always ensure items show on the bottom when the
redraw timer expires.
V3.5
Bug fix
- For very fast computers, they send characters with virtually no delay between which
requires grbl to process the serial port as fast as it can. The problem is that
grbl has an interrupt service routine that can slow down the processing it does
of incoming characters on its serial port. This causes lost characters in its input
buffer, which results in hung gcode file processing or errors. To fix, I have added
a slight delay (10ms) after sending every character. This has been confirmed to
solve the lost character problem on grbl.
V3.4.6
Bug fix
- Scrolling of content now completes each time. Previously there were conditions where
auto-scrolling would fail and you would have to manually scroll to see some lines
- Fixes to support 4-axis Mega2560 (tested with actual Mega2560 running 0.81 c-axis).
Includes fix to command filter to support A/B/C axis commands
- Fixed minor issue where connecting with wrong baud rate can cause long delay before
you can again control the Open/Close button
- Incorporated more translations from LETARTARE
V3.4.5
Bug fix
- When modifying the ui files for auto widget rescaling, broke a number of programmatically
greyed out widgets, mainly, you couldn't reopen the port after closing it. Now those are fixed.
Enhancement
- Incorporated LETARTARE's localization file for French so that it is possible to see
locale-specific text in the installed version of Grbl Controller (see trlocale subdir)
V3.4.4
Bug fix
- Incorporated LETARTARE's 4-axis (C-axis) implementation - thanks! (Issues #29 and #34)
(added option to enable/disable 4-axis mode) - potential issue that needs investigating:
Can this be enabled on the fly or if it requires restart of Grbl Controller?
- Incorporated LETARTARE's translation support (French)
- Incorporated LETARTARE's fix for command history (#26)
- Incorporated Kosme's fix to issue #17 (#33). Z axis slider now moves in 0.1 inch increments
when in inches mode.
- Incorporated Kosme's fix to issue #27. If work units are inches, now displays inches,
not mm.
Enhancements
- Ability to resize entire screen and widgets. Scales down to close to 600x400 pixels
for tiny displays; also remembers last size and position of screen. (#37)
- Incorporated Kosme's fix to issue #10 (#33). Popup appears to remind you to zero position
if starting a new job.
V3.4.3
Bug fix
- Unsupported G43/G44 commands include following Z command which causes problems when
left standalone. The entire line must be removed.
- Now treat M2 and M30 as unsupported as they cause grbl lockup when using aggressive
preloading.
- Moved program version define into its own header file so fewer files need recompiling
with a version change.
V3.4.2
Bug fix
- If a gcode command line is an arc with X,Y,Z and z-rate limiting enabled, fixed to
properly split the z rate to not use the G2 command and use G1 instead as grbl
was generating an error with the G2.
V3.4.1
Code sync
- Fixes to code now allows code to compile under Qt5 without error and also resolves
some localization issues. Continues to properly compile under Qt4 also. No normally
noticable functional differences.
V3.4
Enhancements
- Z-axis slider now allows rapid control of Z-axis positioning. This feature is still
being evaluated for proper behavior due to some user-interface issues.
If you run into trouble, please report a bug.
- All axis control buttons have been permanently enabled regardless of whether or not an
axis command is in progress - this allows more rapid updating. Note - there is no error
checking for the case of entering too many commands for the Grbl buffer. This is unlikely
but possible.
- Now supports setting of baud rates from 9600 to 115200
- Aggressive preload enabled is now the default. If the user upgraded from an older
Grbl Controller and had it disabled, a popup will warn them that it is being enabled.
They still have the option to disable, if desired
- Logging is turned on by default (only for new installs)
- All detected errors are collected and displayed after a file is run in the status view
- If filtering unsupported commands, all commands filtered out are listed after the file
is run.
- Logging now gives the line number of each command sent from the file and the corresponding
ok or error also contains the line number.
- An option has been provided to reduce the precision of lines that exceed Grbl's line buffer,
which by default is 50 characters. The code removes the arguments with the greatest precision
first and ending with at least one decimal place of precision. Errors are generated if it
cannot remove sufficient precision for the available buffer space. The buffer size on Grbl
is configurable in the options, as older Grbls have 50 characters and newer have 70.
Bug Fixes
- If Grbl stops responding (waiting for an ok), Soft Reset Grbl now functions correctly
(so you can soft reset without having to restart Grbl Controller). This affects aggressive
preload mode only.
- Commands to start/stop coolant coupled with dwell commands and aggressive preload cause
Grbl's modal logic to stop sending OK responses (on purpose). This was solved by waiting
for the OK of the coolant off before sending additional commands. It is not clear whether
this fixes all possible such modal problems, so use carefully and report any anomalies.
V3.3.9
Enhancement
- We now are able to remember and restore ports that are not visible to QextSerialEnumerator
so that user doesn't have to retype the ghost port every time they start Grbl Controller.
V3.3.8
Enhancement/Fix
- Modified code that detects presence of Grbl upon serial port opening, the original
assumption was that we would get the version string upon serial port open, but some
Arduino-compatible boards like the AlaMode did not behave this way. Fixed the code
so that if there is no response upon serial port open, we send a soft reset (Ctrl-X)
and wait for the version string. Tested to work with AlaMode and with traditional
Ardiuno Uno.
V3.3.7
Enhancement
- Made COM port field editable
V3.3.6
Bug Fixes
- Fixed decimal on the LCD display to always show three decimal points so that
it is easier to read the display (it doesn't jump around anymore). Tested to
hold up to 9999.999 and -9999.999, which should handle 20 x 20 meter Shapeokos.
V3.3.5
Bug Fixes
- Changed how we detect Grbl upon opening on COM port.
** NOTE ** This change will probably break older V0.51 capability
Previously we sent out a linefeed to trigger a response, however, this caused problems
on some arduino variants and would not result in correct sync with the controller.
Fixed by no longer sending the linefeed and instead just watch the port for Grbl response.
- Changed the default "short" wait timeout to 2 seconds from 1 second in case of slow responses.
V3.3.4
Enhancements
- Added option checkbox to choose to filter gcode or send it as-is to the controller. The
filtering removes gcode that is not supported in v0.8 of Grbl, which reduces the error
reports from Grbl. Some files generate unexpected codes like G91.1 which can actually
affect the motion in unexpected ways- filtering helps prevent this from happening.
IMPORTANT: The default is to not filter, which is different than previous versions! This
may result in unexpected command processing. If using advanced gcodes, perform an air run
first.
Bug Fixes
- Mach3 files have no whitespace in the gcode. Fixed code to handle such files. Affects
the Visualizer only.
- The filtering logic was fixed to properly filter gcode when sending a file - previous
versions would filter out gcode that Grbl supported.
- Changed validator for double (i.e. float) values so that code compiles under older Qt
versions.
- Changed Visualizer display to say Width-X and Height-Y instead of Width and Depth to make
it less confusing.
V3.3.3
Bug Fix
- Modal G arc (where G2 or G3 is specified once followed by X/Y/I/J) was failing for certain
arc combinations in the visualizer due to resetting the cw to false with each line. Fixed
to not reset the cw variable and retain from previous lines.
V3.3.2
Bug Fix
- G-command can now be set once and multiple X/Y commands then issued on lines following
(Allows "ShapeOko_Calibration_Pattern_01b.ngc to be rendered)
V3.3.1
Bug Fixes
- Hardened the visualizer's file parser so that it supports spaces between positional
arguments and values
- No longer skips last line in file if that line contains a valid command
- No longer crashes if line contains one or more stray whilespace characters
- Also accepts semi-colon as a comment line (in addition to existing open paren and percent)
V3.3
Enhancemetns
- Added "Visualizer" feature. It is now possible to see top-down view of the
file to be milled.
* Shows actual file units (inches or millimeters) independent of coordinate display
* Auto-scaling
* Supports limited subset of commands (G0/G1/G2/G3)
* Visualizer on tab panel shared with Axis control
* Actual last spindle cutter position is shown; auto-scales to include both cutter
and file
* When file is being run, overlay of all commands sent to Grbl is shown in green
* Displays dimensions of design, along with design's width and depth in file's units
V3.2
Enhancements
- Support for "Aggressive Preload" of commands when sending file to Grbl
* File's lines are sent to Grbl as fast as Grbl can take it, allowing
Grbl to optimize acceleration. Some files have been observed to take
1/3 the time to complete!
* Modeled after Grbl's own python script (computes/predicts how much
space is available in Grbl's input buffer)
* Due to the additional processing, CPU usage is greater than normal mode
and it has been optimized to run fine on a Raspberry Pi
* Normal (non-preload) mode is the default
* Response processing code now waits until a line has been received rather
than collect a long stream to behave like the python script
* LCD updates have been set to be roughly once every second independent
of rate of line sends/preloads
- Z-rate limit feature now includes default xy rate setting
* Z rate limiting only occurs during file sends. If z is included with x&y
then they are split into two commands automatically and the xy rate setting
is used for the xy portion
* Since feed rate is modal, code will fix any subsequent xy items that are
missing feed rate specifiers (cambam correctly adds them, but others may not)
- Replaced basic logging with Log4Qt logging capabilities.
* Support for error, warning, info, debug message types. All messages are timestamped.
* More diagnostic messages added, mainly around sending and receiving from com ports
* Only error and warning are displayed in release build, all are displayed in debug.
* If the user enables file logging, all messages are stored regardless of build type
* File is output to user's home folder
* If you enable or disable logging to file, you must restart Grbl Controller
* You can split out diagnostic from status messages by grepping for (DIAG) or (STATUS)
- Changed menus so that the first menu is File > Exit. Menus now use accelerators
Bug Fixes
- Fixed problems with z-rate limit feature, previous version was not implemented correctly.
- Fixed subtle issues with sending bytes to COM port
* On really fast Windows PCs, the default timeout values would occasionally result in
a line not being sent. This was fixed by changing the write timeout from 10 to
500 ms by hardcoding it into the QextSerialPort library. This was only observed in
aggressive preload mode, never in normal mode.
Known issues
- New reponse line detect mode requires more processing because mainly of the faster
stream of status messages. To get around this, certain features have been disabled
in the status view so that CPU usage is manageable on the Raspberry Pi, specifically
the horizontal scroll bar is not available. Turn on file logging if you wish to see
the entire line.
- When using aggressive preload, any error messages returned by Grbl are not synced
to sent messages (they come back randomly). This can be confusing.
- If running preload, it can take longer for steppers to stop after a Stop command
due to the number of items in Grbl's queue. The only way to stop sooner is to
press Close / Reset button
- Under exteme CPU loads (unlikely to occur with recent optimizations), the "runtime"
display does not display accurate times, oddly, it displays the same time that would
occur if not under load
Tested on cardboard using file provided by user:
- Windows 7 64bit, 0.8c, aggressive mode (~4 minute run)
- Windows 7 64bit, 0.8c, normal mode (~10 minute run)
- Windows 7 64bit, 0.8a, aggressive mode(~4 minute run)
- Raspberry Pi, 0.8c, aggressive mode (~4 minute run)
- Raspberry Pi, 0.8c, aggressive mode and z-limit (~6 minute run)
V3.1.2 (unofficial release, optimizations for Raspberry Pi)
Enhancements
- Optimized multiline write to status window to use faster list-based approach
- Removed unnecessary main window repaint after every line added to status window
- Fixed options window text positioning so that it appears proper on the pi
V3.1.1 (unofficial release, adjustments for Raspberry Pi)
Enhancements
- Changed measurement units in LCD from "inches" to "in" (cosmetic)
- Shortened text and adjusted main window layout for the text size on the pi
V3.1
Enhancements
- Supports Grbl 0.8c. Still supports 0.8a. 0.51 is supported but without LCDs.
- Grbl settings dialog is now a table of dynamic length depending on # of params.
- LCD position data is now obtained from Grbl and is *not* computed
- Added LCD displays for both machine and work coordinates
- Cycling of Grbl via COM port toggling has been completely removed, except
that Close button has now been renamed Close / Reset.
- Position data on Grbl is persisted as long as possible to allow for repositioning, etc.
- Zero work coordinates has been added (G92)
- Go-to-home feature added (lifts tool 5 mm and traverses to x=0, y=0)
- Option to put manual command (back) into absolute mode after jog button command
- Grbl Soft reset (Ctrl-X) button added
- Z-axis rate limiting capability added. Only affects file, not jog or manual commands.
- User is required to specify which measurement mode they are using, mm or inches:
* Default is millimeters
* Grbl is configured to operate in either mm or inches
* If a file is sent in inches and user is in mm, it will auto-restore to mm
after the file has been sent (and vice-versa, mm->inches)
- 0.8c enhancements:
* Displays current Grbl state (i.e. Run, Idle, etc.)
* LCDs display whether values are in inches or millimeters
* Unlock Grbl button added ($X)
* Determines and sets parser state for current mm/inch command mode ($G)
* Determines and sets coordinate units via $13
- Removed annoying "No movement expected for command" message
- Flags that cross threads have been changed to use QAtomicInt
- Version is now shown in title bar
- A basic log file feature has been added
- Runs on the Raspberry Pi!
Known Issues
- The registry key product name has been changed from GCodeSender to GrblController
*** WARNING: Old settings are not migrated ****
- Switching between millimeters and inches works, but has not been fully tested
- Go to home has not been fully tested with inches mode
- Manually issuing $13 or G20/G21 can confuse the program
V3.0
Enhancements
- Nearly a full code rewrite to ensure ease-of-use and robustness
- Percentage complete progress bar for files; also shows time elapsed sending file.
- Reset button now cycles COM port which causes Arduino to stop steppers and
reinitialize position to 0,0,0 (No more manual Auduino resets!)
- Settings configurations are now stored using QSettings class for platform independence.
- Only available COM ports are now shown. Uses third-party QextSerialPort library.
- App remembers last COM port used, last folder, last file extension used after restart
- Ability to configure wait-for-response time
- Status list window now shows both sent and received data
- Error responses are ignored during file send (nearly 100% of the time they are not important)
- Z-jog speed using buttons is configurable
- Radio buttons to select mode have been removed in favor of enabling/disabling widgets based
on current context. This simplifies usage.
- Popups have been removed in favor of writing errors to status list window
Bug fixes
- Overall code hardening
- Properly implementing Qt signals and slots across the board
Build verification
- Windows 7 64 bit using MinGW
- Inno Setup for Windows, installs successfully on Windows 7
- Mac OSX Mountain Lion, target 64 bit and 32 bit executables
- Qt Mac installer successfully installs and runs on Mountain Lion and 10.5 32 bit Intel
- Linux: Builds successfully on Debian 6, Ubuntu 12.10
V2.1x1
NOTE: Changes were only focused on Arduino GRBL capabilities with the Shapeoko, so
things like Tool Change were not tested.
Enhancements
- Improved handling of response code - this is the most significant change as it
ensures reliable send/response handling when sending a file to the Grbl processor.
- Manual command now allows hitting return and command is sent. No need to press Go.
- Default job step size changed from 0.01 to 1 mm
- Compiles and runs under Linux now (tested with Debian and latest Qt)
- Works with old 168 Arduino processor (except that old code is buggy and not recommended)
- Disabled "go to home at end of job". The arduino code doesn't handle it correctly
and mills straight back into and through your work. Checkbox in settings has no effect.
Bug fixes
- Fixed crash when options file is not present the first time run
- Fixed crash when trying to get GRBL settings from device
- Settings work with 168 (8 settings) and 328 processors (10 settings)
- Fixed Stop to call proper routine stopsig - now Stop button works correctly
-------------------------------------------------------------
Fork by Zapmaker at this rev
-------------------------------------------------------------
v2.1a
Bug fixes
- Corrected an issue that caused the program to crash if the g-code had blank lines.
V2.1
New Features
- Gcode that is valid but is not recognized by GRBL gets filtered and it is not sent.
Bug fixes
- Corrected an issue that prevented manually sent Gcode for being displayed correctly.
- Corrected an issue with the images not displaying.
V2.0 Major release
- Improved the port handling reducing opening and closing frecuency.
- Added the ability to type and send commands directly.
- Support for tool change instructions. If enabled it pauses execution, raises the spindle, goes to a fixed location for toolchange, waits for tool change, and continues excecution.
- Added About window.
V1.0c Minor
Bug fixes
- Corrected a problem when adjusting axis that caused all axis to move at the same time. Caused by grbl starting in incremental programming.
V1.0b Minor
Bug fixes
- Corrected a bug in the adjusting script.
V1.0a Minor
Bug fixes
- Fixed a bug reading some file formats that avoided the dials from updating.