Hi, after lots of frustration trying to get UGS to work for me, I decided to use other senders. SourceRabbit works ok, but I believe CNCjs is a more robust answer.
I downloaded all the necessary software (node and cncjs). On the Console it reads Connected to /dev/tty.Bluetooth-Incoming-Port. I am unable to communicate with the LongMill or to jog it.
I did read a response here in the forum, but it was too technical for me. Would someone be able to direct me to where I can learn the steps I need to follow to work with cncjs? Thanks a lot for your patience.
MacBook Pro running macOS Catalina.
CNCjs 1.9.22 (Grbl) along with Node 14.15.1 and Jpm 6.14.8
Thanks
@MonkeyBear - So, if I understand you correctly, CNCjs starts up and says it’s connected. Is that right? Are the jogging buttons grayed out? Are you sure you are connected to the correct port? I’m not a Mac person but on Windows you sometimes have more than 1 port show up. Even if you get the Connected message it won’t work. On the connection box hit the drop down button and see if there is more than 1 port. If so try connecting to another. Make sure baud rate is set to 115200.
Thanks so much for your quick response and tips. The jogging buttons are grayed out. I tried a different port but it did not make a difference. As a matter of fact, when I hit the drop down menu for ports, it shows only one. Baud rate is set to 115200.
@MonkeyBear - Ok. Do you remember which post you looked at that was too technical? Maybe I can decipher it and come up with an answer. Hopefully anyway since I’m not a Mac person.
@MonkeyBear - Just thought of one issue that Windows has but I don’t know if it would be the same problem on a Mac. If the Arduino drivers are not installed (on Windows) the controller will connect to your gcode sender program but won’t communicate. On windows we had to install the Arduino software to get the drivers.
Do you know how to check if the Arduino drivers are installed? It may be different in a Mac but I can try to check. Thanks again.
BDfife posted this on Jan 25th (I am copying his entire post below):
I spent some time getting cncjs working with the longmill last night. Ran into an issue - posting here because I didn’t see any talk about this on the forums when I searched.
With my set-up (running the cncjs 1.9.20 and the October 2019 grbl firmware) I could connect and issue commands via the console, but jogging in cncjs did not work, the controls were greyed out.
This is because the cncjs code looks for a specific string Grbl xx.xx [’$’ for help] that doesn’t match the custom startup message Grbl 1.1h: LongMill build [’$’ for help] (Oct 21, 2019) used in the longmill code.
To fix this, I downloaded the October 2019 sienci grbl source 3 and changed report_init_message in report.c to:
// Welcome message
void report_init_message()
{
printPgmString(PSTR("\r\nGrbl " GRBL_VERSION " [’$’ for help] (Longmill Build
Oct 21, 2019)\r\n"));
}
After I re-built and uploaded the code, cncjs was able recognize recognize when grbl was running. This fixed the jogging issue.
I don’t know how to check if the Arduino drivers are loaded or not. Do you have the Arduino IDE installed? If not go here and download it and that will install the drivers - https://www.arduino.cc/en/software.
That problem has since been fixed. It was fixed in release 1.9.21.
I believe I have the Arduino IDE installed, but I will check. Thanks a lot again.
You’re welcome but I hate to leave a problem unsolved. Keep us posted and hopefully somebody else may be better suited to help. @andy, @Chris please feel free to jump in or anybody else using a Mac computer with CNCjs.
Heyward, sorry for not getting back to you yet. Unfortunately I am just a weekend CNC warrior. During the week I seldom have time to learn more about it. I will make sure to check all the Arduino settings and double-check that the IDE is installed.
In the meantime I continue to use a hodge-podge of CAD, CAM, and code senders. I have used everything from Adobe Illustrator (my wife’s), Fusion 360, Carbide Create, and Easel. Code senders have proven to be a harder nut to crack given my limited knowledge.
No problem. We will get you figured out somehow.