We need a pendant like the one now offered by Shapeoko. A pendant is great way to position the machine, indicate edges, find centers, etc.
It would be great if the auto zero touch plate had an LED indicating contact. Watching for a change of color of a dot on the screen while you’re moving the auto zero touch plate is a contortion.
Finally, when the auto zero touch plate is done probing it moves at light speed to the corner of the work, while you’ve got your hands right there holding the touch plate. It’s frightening and unnecessary for the machine to move that quickly at that moment.
That was suggested by another user recently and is a good idea. There is no reason for that fast movement at the end of the probe cycle.
And a good Sienci pendant would be a welcome addition too. If you haven’t already, check out Francis Creation’s use of a PiBot pendant to use along with his own ncSender
It’s actually an improved version of the PiBot. PiBot for instance isn’t wireless and there is some other design flaw with the PiBot where you can’t have the USB connected to it for charging the battery at same time as using it with the RJ12 connection or it will destroy it.
I do like the idea of getting rid of that rapid movement scares the living daylights out of me as well.
I don’t mind the lack of an LED as before it starts you have to touch and if it doesn’t work then it won’t let you start probing, you don’t need to look at it while you do it just, before and after you try, but I could understand wanting it, my previous openbuilds touch plate had one.
I’ve used my phone as a remote to gsender instead of a pendant, or you can use a controller, but honestly I’ve not found it all that needed in actuality so I stopped using them, and just use the touch screen.
Thanks for the feedback @smoose , we’ve relayed these to the team.
A pendant is something we’re expecting down the pipeline, in fact our software engineers have been playing around developing a pendant version of gSender June 2026 Production Update | Sienci Labs
I used the iMach III P4-S Control Pendant (vistaCNC.com) with my WoodSmith CNC Router for several years before upgrading to my excellent Altmill (never going back).
Unfortunately, it will not work with gSender, being designed for Mach3, but really nice to have.
I too agree with the final movements after probing. I was just coming here to describe this issue. In my opinion after probing the z should travel up, gsender should prompt to remove the touch plate and hands, then prompt to go to zero.
I just ruined my auto zero touch plate because I had the wrong corner selected (my fault entirely) and when the gsender completed the probing it went to “zero” and stabbed the bit down into the plate. The point broke of in the plate so now it registers as touched permanently! If the z axis had simply retracted and prompted through the next movements I could have avoided that.
That sounds like a good option since you have to remove the plate anyways and would have solved the issue of people worrying about the spindle moving too fast towards their hands as well. Maybe yet another option to add?
