Trying to get gsender to communicate with my Next Wave Automation HD4. Does anyone have any experience setting up this configuration?
gSender only works with grbl and grblHAL based controllers. I could be wrong but I don’t think Next Wave uses either.
Well according to this post it does use grbl but the thread ends without any indication of success.
I can’t seem to find anything useful with Next Wave’s website. I did find out that their firmware is on at least version 6.0. Grbl is version 1.1 and I don’t think grblHAL has reached 1.0 yet. That seems like it would suggest that they aren’t using grbl or they modified it.
EDIT: @Jack I was catching up on my reading here and I came across this thread.
It’s not a free way to use gSender but if your not happy with your current controller maybe it’s an option.
Wow. I never thought about approaching it that way. Grab a SLB and bypass the Next Wave controller all together. I am going to put my brain to work on this!
Thanks.
Your most welcome!
I have a LongMill MK1 and I think I’m going to update to the SuperLongBoard soon. It seems like a nice upgrade especially if your current controller is only 8-bit like my original LongBoard. More connections for more toys if I can find the dough!
Nooooooo not you tooo!
8 bit was what I found charming, being raised by an 8 bit machine. It’s all bigbit these days and I feel old.
Don’t you dare kick that ball I just put on the penalty spot into the goal!
BANG! I just pulled the trigger and ordered a SLB!
@_Michael IMHO, Michael, you won’t regret it. I have the SLB on my LM Mk1. I was one of the beta testers and went through some growing pains. Since the final version of the board, I have had no issues. I connect through a direct ethernet connection using grblHal and gSender. I run my diode laser and the Vortex. All works as it should.
Have fun.
@gwilki I almost PM’d you last night to get your opinion on the SLB but I decided to read the docs before I did. After reading the docs and watching a couple of Chris’s videos I was convinced that it should be my first upgrade because it’s the one that affects everything.
The thread referenced above was mine. I hated that I had no control over accel/decel and top speeds with the Nextwave system. I bought a Altmill over a year ago and love how it operates and what it can do compared to my little SD110.
I bought an SLB and stripped all of the Nextwave controller and wire harness off leaving just the motors. I then ran new wires for the motors and installed new connectors on those cables to plug straight into the motors. I added limit switches so I could run homing sequences and have hard and soft limits too. No more getting to the end of travel and listening to the motors skip and make that awful noise.
My SD110 is now used only for laser purposes. Let’s face it, the SD series machines aren’t that capable and have a ton of flex in the Z axis plate where the router gets clamped to. Running a laser job now with my new accel/decel rates and higher travel speeds, which are all tunable with gSender, takes 1/3 the time it used to with the old Nextwave control.
I would make the conversion 1000 times over again without hesitation. As an added benefit, if I have a laser job too big to fit on my SD110, I just un-mount the laser and driver, move it to my Altmill and run the exact file on that machine. No need for different cut files made with different PP for each machine anymore.
If you have questions or want part numbers for the connectors and pinouts just let me know. I’ll help however I can.