I am a complete newbie with programing, I want to use my newly aquired Arduino Uno R4 WiFi to run my homebuilt CNC. I want to use GSender program and I’ve read that I will need to install GRBLHAL.
I have installed Arduino IDE on my Windows 10 PC, gone to Github to “grblHAL · GitHub” but I’m unsure what files I need to download from the site the couple I have tried failed?
Any help you could give will be really appreciated.
@Seaco You are mistaken. You will not install grbl Hal on an Uno. The uno is 8-bit. You will install grbl. You can look here on the sienci site to see how best to flash the Uno with grbl
Hi gwilki, thank you for you reply I am a bit confused as I have read this and assumed I needed Grblhal?
“The Arduino Uno R4 WiFi is not directly supported by the standard Grbl firmware, which is primarily designed for the 8-bit ATmega328P-based boards. GrblHAL, a more modern and actively developed fork of Grbl, is recommended for 32-bit microcontrollers like the one in the Uno R4 WiFi.”
@Seaco I apologize. I saw Uno and thought 8-bit. Clearly, I was wrong.
There are Hal flashing instructions in the SLB technical manual, but I don’t know if they apply to your board. You may want to open a support ticket with Sienci if you cannot find what you need on the arduino forum.
@Seaco Your duplicate post was flagged for my attention and I have deleted it. Please do not duplicate post.
I’m not an expert on grblHAL but from what I can tell the microcontroller on the Uno R4 WiFi, a RA4M1, is not supported by grblHAL. At least not yet. The ESP32 is supported by grblHAL but my interpretation from the docs is that the ESP32 chip is just for the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. I think it’s the RA4M1 that’s in charge.
From the Arduino documentation.
The Arduino UNO R4 WiFi is designed around the 32-bit microcontroller RA4M1 from Renesas while also featuring a ESP32 module for Wi-Fi® and Bluetooth® connectivity.
Over on GitHub you can find the grblHAL/drivers repository. It has information on the capabilities of different microcontrollers that they have drivers for and I can’t find the RA4M1 anywhere. There is drivers.json file in the repository as well and there isn’t any RA4M1 in that file. I searched with CTRL-f in FireFox.
If I’m wrong, and I very well could be, and it is supported the instructions on how to compile and flash grblHAL are in the grblHAL/core’s Wiki.
EDIT: I found this on Arduino’s GitHub
The on board ESP32 module is by default running firmware that handles connectivity for the UNO R4 WiFi. You may need to update this firmware to enable new features, or resolve bugs and other issues. There are a few methods of updating this firmware, and you can find them all detailed in our Help Center article.
So maybe it is possible to flash grblHAL to the ESP32 module by sacrificing the WiFi and Bluetooth but this is getting too far over my head for me to be of much help.
So maybe I would be better off buying a Arduino R3 to run Gsender as it seems Grbl will install on that fine?
I have added a picture of the error I get when I try to add Grblhal on my Uno R4 board maybe someone could see from that image what isn’t working.
