Hey all, I have a few suggestions to make control a little more user friendly. I have a lot of experience running CNC machines and I see a few things that would improve usability greatly. I was able to get control running on a Pi and that is awesome! so far so good. the first suggestion I have is to either make the jog increments adjustable by the user or change the increments to (.001; .01; .1; 1.0) for those of us who work in inches .01 is not fine enough if you are using an edge finder and locating the edge of stock precisely. my machine is a converted mill with ball screws and can utilize this small of a move. and while we are talking about jog increments. it would be cool if there could be a keyboard command that would set each increment. rather than cycling through the different distances. a button for .001, one for .010 and so in. if this can be done, a pendant could be made that could have buttons with the different jog distances and would be a matter of pushing the button and jogging. maybe this can be done with a macro but I am not sure how that would work. something like this... Control looks to be a very promising option for DIY CNC control! Thanks! Tim
That's exactly the intent behind Macros (and why they can also be assigned to Keyboard shortcuts) , create your own macros do the specifics that fit the individual use cases - where-as the main UI has to fit the needs of beginners, and consumers, and people without experience as well, sadly compromises are always a part of life. With the power of the JS macros, you can even tweak the UI if you wish: See Help getting started with Javascript Macros in Control... for some examples See gnea/grbl to learn more about jogging with Grbl Also read the rest of the Grbl Wiki - the extra knowledge will help you create other awesome macros.
If you're not a javacript programmer, I can help. I've been working on a bunch of UI tweaks for myself. You'll see one of them in the link that Peter gave you. This morning I've started a github repo that will house all of the other tweaks I've come up with. There's not much there atm, but I have a bunch on my computer waiting to be uploaded. sharmstr/OpenBuildsHacks
If you don't mind helping out, that would be awesome! I am not a programmer... at least in java. I would say the most important thing for me is to be able to jog down to .001" is this an easy thing to change? maybe get rid of the 10" jog increment and replace with .001? thanks!!! Tim
I understand the UI needing to fit the needs of beginners, and I like the ability of macros to support specific-use needs, but JS macros are an advanced feature requiring programming knowledge. Beginners are only beginners until they're not. Once I knew what I was doing, I found things that I wish I could adjust. Jog increments are a good example & they come up often here. I work in inches, but need to switch to millimeters to jog in fine enough increments to touch off. And somebody must use this or it wouldn't be there, but I'd *never* jog in 10" increments. So, why not have a software settings area, separate from the GRBL settings where an intermediate user can (for example) input jog increments that work for them and that stick between software updates? I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way. CONTROL is hands down the best control software I've used, and keeps getting better. In my opinion it would benefit from a little love for the intermediate users & those that'll never write a JS macro, but even if you tell me to f*** off I'll happily keep using it.
Play with Continuous jog, and get a Probe - I never touch Incremental anymore In particular, the way we've implemented Continuous on Interface, is more the future I see for control. If I had my personal way, Increments would be gone (; This is goal that we set for CONTROL at the very beginning and feel very strongly about. "no configuration needed" I guess we just love Probes (; but fair enough 0.01mm is 0.254mm, probably can be better. 0.0254mm doesnt make sense though ( because How to calculate V-Slot® deflection), Can't really make it 0.039" (thats going to look terrible on the button lol)
I mostly use Continuous jog, and I have a probe but can't always use it. ..but .031" would look natural to me on the button in inch mode. And .125" would instead of .1", and maybe .005" instead of .01". But if the direction remains 'no configuration' - something different that could be useful is a macro library here on the OpenBuilds site. Kind of what sharmstr is doing, but here & easily accessible (cuz what's a GitHub repo?). They'd be 'use at your own risk' but at least you guys would've looked at them & confirmed that they were done right.
OB Control, OB CAM and the post processors are all housed on github. Not here on the forums. It allows us to easily share code and have version control. If you star the repo, you will get notifications when the code has been updated.
played with continuous jog a bit tonight. seems pretty cool! especially if one had a probe to do the final touch off. I had an idea to improve continuous jog, not sure if it is possible but would help folks who do not have a touch probe. what if when you start continuous jog, the feed starts really slow, like .001 per second or so. and the longer you hold it, the feedrate would increase to whatever the feedrate is set to in the dialog box. I use an edge finder for finding the edge of my part when machining metal and it seems like this would be a cool feature. if it is possible. it would almost be like an acceleration curve for the continuous feed. Thanks for the awesome support. I was using bcnc for a while but it has issues with setting the feedrate during jogging and feedrate overrides. so I am looking for an alternative. this sender looks promising. I have also been looking at UGS. Thanks again! Tim Shawn! nice work on the macro!!!
How to add a javascript macro Go to Macros tab Click ADD Click the Javascript tab, paste this code into the text box. Give it a name and an icon of your preference, and color, keyboard shortcut, etc if you so wish Click Apply to save the macro, then click it to run. If you need to edit it, click on the gear icon. You need to run the macro whenever you start control. I have coded it so you cant run it twice. Please fully test at a safe Z height. DM me with any issues.
Thanks, I will give it a try. I had another idea for probing. been researching it a bit and it does look like a really cool way to do part touch off. on my milling machine, I am usually machining metal, so i wouldn't necessarily need the fancy touch off probe. plus I may be touching off an angle extrusion or some other weird shape. is there a way to probe just the X or just the Y? if not, it would be cool to have that option. use continuous jog to get close and then run the probe routine to do the precise indication of the edge of the part. would need to clip one wire of the probe to the metal part and the other wire to the tool. probably another good use of a macro I guess if the dev's don't want to put it in the probe feature set. although I think it would be really cool to have several options in the probe dialog. X or Y or Z or XY or XYZ as probing options. Thanks again for the great support! Tim
Click on the probe button. Those are already there. (tabs on the top are the different probe routines)
You can use 0mm as offsets in custom probe option, and CONTROL has support for custom probe offsets, as well as individual axis probes
I guess what I meant is, regardless of where it's housed, make it an official thing & have a "Macros" link here to go right to that place. Maybe in the Software dropdown up in the header. I haven't played with the macro you created yet but I only know it exists & the 'github repo' exists because of this thread. It's kind of like what you did with Documentation - most of it existed in various places & you consolidated it & made it easy. Okay, done... going to play with your macro.
As of v1.0.277 you now have increments of 0.001", 0.01", 0.1" and 1" increments by default, no macro needed
Hi Everyone I have a simple Question I am setting my x-y zero manual so the 0.1mm is too big for the edge finder is there any way to jog the machine by 0.01mm ??? I know there is inch mode and it can go to 0.001" but I can not find any way to jog 0.01mm. Thank you.
You'd either have to enter the gcode command into the serial console, or create 4 different macros for X- X+ Y- Y+ Example for X+ $J=G91G21X0.01F2500
Rather than the slow and painful jogging using an edge finder, consider getting yourself an https://docs.openbuilds.com/xyzprobe
How is this (adjust feedrate for manual jogging) done with the current version of OpenBuilds Control? It appears that my types Feedrate values box is missing and the slider doesn't do a thing, PC feedrate for jog is stuck at the $110,111,112 settings AND for some reason the mobile jog feedrates are 2x X,Y and 4X for X what the grbl max are, yeah I realize the grbl maxes is what it'll actually run at, but there should be some way to adjust the jog feedrate.... Is there really NO way to adjust this anymore?? Am I missing where this setting was moved to or something? Thanks for you amazing support Peter! whether I missed something or this setting was removed in error or on purpose I'm sure you'll set me straight with the right info.
tried it, it has zero effect. The slider in the PC and the slider on mobile does nothing to the Fvalues when the jog command line is sent.
insert foot into mouth,.. i guess I was using the Feedrate Slider within the PC version by mistake... BUT the Mobile jog slider still doesn't work correctly... Edit: Also, is the jog slider supposed to show the actual feed its going to jog at, or do I just need to memorize the max feed $110,111,112 of each machine and keep that in my head as i adjust the jog slider? I see a box at the bottom but never see a value there.
