A place to discuss all things related to the Grbl panel control. Grbl Panel GitHub - https://github.com/gerritv/Grbl-Panel Grbl Panel Wiki - https://github.com/gerritv/Grbl-Panel/wiki What is Grbl Panel? A machine-like panel to control Grbl Yes, another one. I needed more definite control over my CNC router. And I wanted it adaptable, configurable and understandable. This panel treats the CNC machine as a generic device. The jog buttons are arranged in a way that reflects a fixed spindle milling machine. Many items are configurable and those changes persist when you close the Panel. The code is VB.Net, created using Visual Studio 2013 Express targeting .Net 3.5 Why Panel? Grbl needs a separate application, something to feed it gcode from a file, provide a means of jogging to set up workpieces on the table, change tools etc. The Panel controls the setup, loading of a file, jogging, setting offsets for job to be run, the interface between human and machine. These are all functions that interface via serial interface to Grbl. Many machines have a physical panel that has buttons and displays for these functions. For Grbl, we use a soft panel. Other implementations are Universal Code Sender, Grbl-Homing and Grbl Controller. The approach taken instead for this implementation has more in common with Fanuc, Haas and Mach3 and LinuxCNC. General Overview A typical milling work setup requires jogging to where work 0 is located. This often requires 'touching off' on each axis in turn. Hence there are 0 buttons beside each Work axis. Once you are running a GCode file, you should not be able to jog or send manual commands. These are interlocked. When an Alarm condition is detected by Grbl, the Gcode file run is stopped. Controls and displays are grouped into sub panels. These get enabled/disabled depending on what the Panel is doing. A Settings tab provides you with some editable fields that alter the operation of the panel or what it sends to Grbl. There are additional tabs, e.g. Tools which are presently not implemented. Grbl Grbl is the basis for many CNC machines. It is the basis of many controllers. It's enhancements are managed in a controlled manner, leading Grbl to be a stable and predictable high performance GCode interpreter. its feature set is strictly limited, in part due to the constraints of the Atmel 328P that it runs on. Currently maintained by Sonny Jeon (@chamnit). His support and feedback helped focus the development of Grbl-Panel. The excellent Grbl wiki also made the job of coding the interface much simpler. Others who helped are listed in the Help/About/Credits Why VB.Net and Visual Studio Microsoft provides free, extremely well-documented professional quality tools. The visual development environment enabled me to build a fully functional Panel in less than a week of 9-5 effort. That is while learning the details of Delegates, cross thread calls from Serial IO to GUI, the many properties of the controls in use etc. Authors and Contributors The author is Gerrit Visser (@GerritV), a retired computer professional (both hardware and software) who has many interests and hobbies. One of those is machining which inevitably leads to CNC. Support or Contact Please use the Issues tracker to report problems or suggest enhancements. TODO In no particular order this is a list of possible/probable enhancements: Canned Cycles, specifically drilling G81/2/3. This is what sparked the creation of Grbl Panel Allow jogging after a M0 (pause) or M6 (tool change) is to be sent to Grbl Tool Change, M06. This involves moving the tool to some location and then doing a G38.2 probe Finish support .Net 3.5 (serialio read() rewrite) to use GrblPanel on Mono Grbl Panel GitHub - https://github.com/gerritv/Grbl-Panel Grbl Panel Wiki - https://github.com/gerritv/Grbl-Panel/wiki
Quite possibly something I am doing wrong, or a pre-req I don't have. The GrblPanel.application appears to go to the web looking for files and returns saying the application cannot be installed. OTOH the GrblPanel.exe appears to run OK, i.e. it connects to my newly built C_Beam machine with xPRO control board, reads and changes settings, jogs X, Y and Z. What it will NOT do is to load a file for me to load and run in the xPRO board, i.e. the GrblPanel file menu item contains only an "Exit" button. I am GUESSING that the GrblPanel.application adds some other menu items too. So, do I need to install something else ?, e.g. visual basic ? Do I need to clone the github ? BTW, I have the same symptoms on a Windows 7 machine as it is on a Windows XP machine.
Hi Mark! I'm relatively new to the CNC world and finished assembling my C-beam machine last week. I got it working fine by following your 2 hour tutorial and was able to successfully cutout a couple of items I designed in Sketchup. The problems started when I installed my limit switches and tried to do a home cycle. The initial tutorial said that the software considers the front, left corner as the zero xyz point. When I enabled homing, it runs all motors in their positive direction which lands the router in the back right corner with the router up as high as it can go. When I tried to run those same files again, the alarm went off immediately as the machine hit its X limit immediately. Apparently the machine didn't get the memo that our new homing direction was the opposite corner. Any ideas on how to fix this?
You need to change the $23 setting in GRBL. https://github.com/grbl/grbl/wiki/Configuring-Grbl-v0.9 I am configured in the same way as you are, and have $23=3, which sets the homing travel for x and y in the opposite direction. $23=7 will reverse x, y, and z. -- John
Thanks John! That worked and now it is homing in the right direction. I have tried to zero out that location so when I run programs it will consider that as the start point. Now when I do the homing cycle it comes up with coordinates of x= -269, y= -269 and z= -79. I have performed the zero xyz cycle several times and disconnected and reconnected and when I run the home cycle again I get the same negative numbers. I'm getting closer! Any idea how to permanently set this as zero xyz?
Would someone be so kind as to put together a step by step on how to install/run this software for those of us who have zero programming experience? Once we get talking about Visual Basic, NET *.*, and Python i'm rather lost.. Much appreciated !! Gerald
I'm on the same boat as Gerald, man, if it doesn't have a compilation to an EXE things are getting complicated for a non Visual C/Basic programmer. Why isn't there a compiled version of this program? Let me see what can be done to compile this into an "understandable" setup, but first I have to finish some other project(s). -Ronald
You should be able to run GRBL Panel right from the Application (.exe) file located in the folder from the C-Beam Machine control software. Its complied and ready to run. You can download the file here: C-Beam Machine Files (File name is CBeam Machine Control Software 10-6-2015) You can also see how we set up a shortcut to the desktop and a little over view on the C-beam Machine Build Video as well ( the video will jump to the proper point where we are running GRBL Panel) Setting up GRBL Panel Sorry about that guys, I meant to include the complied version for everyone, hope this helps. Mark
Lol, I went right to the Github and couldn't make heads or tails of it... I'll download the C-Beam control software and give that a shot... Thanks Mark !! Gerald
Mark, thank you, now I can lower my hearthrate from 140 back to 80 . I knew it was included with the C-Beam machine but how the ... do you get the EXE? You can download the sourcecode and VB 2008 studio from Microsoft for free. Do you need VB 2013 to compile it? I also like Camotics, great for the starter! Yup, they changed there name from openSCAM to Camotics. -Ronald
Got it working just fine with my laser, love all the different options it has, very nice. I think really my only dislike is from what I see it looks like it loads the entire gcode file into a buffer first? I can load up a 71k line file and there is a good pause before the code actually pops up, I tried loading up a 450,000 line grayscale gcode file and got tired of waiting and just shut the program down and restarted. I'm not sure what it's doing but it would be helpful in at least my case to just stream the file from it's location rather than try and "load" the entire thing. Some of us are loading and running 1 million line + files so this might not be the best in those cases. It will probably be the goto sender app for my Triple Shot build. Thanks !
No, you don't need to compile the app. At gerritv/Grbl-Panel · GitHub go to the Release tab, then pick a release. Near the bottom of a release page it clearly shows a .zip file called <gasp> GrblPanel-Release...zip. Drop that in a directory somewhere and run the .exe file. Newer releases no longer have the .application file so it won't confuse people.
I designed it for machining, not laser work :-( I didn't expect to be loading huge gcode files. I will start looking at streaming the input file for those cases. The character counting method of sending to Grbl is also coming in a while which should benefit laser users.
Hello Gerrit, I was expecting it in the ZIP file, never thought about clicking on "releases" Releases · gerritv/Grbl-Panel · GitHub . Hard to tell for a non-programmer where to find stuff on GitHub sometimes. I'll give it a try, thank you . -Ronald
It's not great for programmers either IMO, at least ones used to sane tools such as SVN. I can't stand using git but no choice. GitHub itself as a CMS is not too bad after using it for a while.
Newbe here. Just got my xPro and tring to use grbl panel. Tried a laptop and a HP desk top. both with Win10 Pro. The panel reads the xpro and shows the settings. Cannot get them to change to the cbeam build/settings jpeg. they seem to take then the screen refreshes and go back to "default". The only setting that stuck was $10 to 6 from 0.
You need to double click on the new entry (while it is highlighted). That sends the new setting. Click the Refresh button to verify. (Are you using GrblPanel 1.0.6.0a version from GitHub?) Gerrit
This looks to be working. Even on an exit and restart. COOL and thanks! I'm a tech. this has me going nuts. never done anything cnc!
Using the Settings section is not entirely intuitive. Go to the setting you want to change, it should be highlighted. Enter the new value and then double click in that box. Make sure Status Poll is enabled in the Misc section (if not the results won't show up, this is a defect that I will have to fix) If you succeeded then the cursor will move to ID $0 box. I just tested this with the current version so it should work for you as well.
Hi Dean. I had the exact same problem. The settings have to be entered in a VERY specific click pattern. Watch this video for a couple minutes starting around 1:16:30 seconds and follow his instructions exactly and your settings will stick. Good luck!
Hey guys, my first post here since i put together my first CNC (C-beam). I have a problem with running the grbl panel. Double click on application show me a message "GRBL Panel has stopped working". I am on windows 8.1 and trying to use GRBL panel 1.0.60a. Any ideas how to fix that?
@High Score not sure if you got it working or not, but you might try running it in windows 7 compatibility mode. It works fine on my windows 10, but I know windows 8 can do some weird things sometimes.
I am getting a new error code coming up since i have switched from a laptop to a desktop. GRBL runs great for a few minutes then gives me a "Fatal error on write to Grbl". Has anyone experienced this before? My GRBL settings are correct and display correctly from when i first set them. Both computers are running windows 7.
