Can I use gsender without a cnc
Hello @Colinp, welcome the group Colin!
I have a spare Arduino, that I flashed with GRBL for this purpose. I mainly use it to answer questions about gSender from my design computer which is not connected to my CNC.
So if you have an Arduino you can flash it with GRBL and connect to it with gSender. You can then jog around, load tool paths and run them etc. without being connected to a CNC. Some things will not work like homing because there is nothing connected to the Arduino to provide signals but you can definitely play around and practice with gSender without a CNC.
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Which one should I get
The LongBoard uses an Arduino Uno Rev3 and I’m pretty sure that is one of or the least expensive Arduino’s. I use a Mega 2560 but that’s just because I already had it.
Edit:
A case for the board is also a good idea. You can find ones already made that aren’t too expensive or you make your own. It’s just good to protect the board from shorts or static discharge.
Thank you for the info will look it up and get one Will the arduino uno R4 wifi work for me
I don’t think the R4 will work, at least not with regular grbl V1.1 because grbl was made for the 328p microcontroller which is 8-bit and the R4 uses a newer 32-bit controller/processor. With that said it might work with grblHAL which is a newer project working to support more modern hardware. gSender supports grblHAL in the Edge version. But I have not used grblHAL personally so I’m not sure it will work.
EDIT: I cant find the Uno R4 which uses the RA4M1 microcontroller from Renesas in the supported hardware list for grblHAL which leads me to believe that the R4 wifi will not work with grblHAL yet.
If you are wanting more modern hardware for some reason maybe you should check out the supported list for grblHAL but it’s not necessary to have more modern hardware just to play around with gSender.
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Thank you again have ordered it from Amazon will return it and find one that is compatible
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@Colinp Sienci sells one for $15 cdn.
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