Hey fellow cncer's Ive been using Mach3, G540 controllers, Vectric Cut software for years. Its getting more difficult to find and more $$ mobo's with legacy ports, yeah I could add cards but why. How big of learning curve is it to make the swap to GRBL and compatible cam software or will the Vectric software still work? Thankx
While I have never used Vectric software. Inventables does offer a grbl post for it. Hopefully someone who has used it can chime in on compatibility. If you already have the g540 from a past setup it will work just fine with grbl 1.1 loaded on a uno to give you usb connectivity
New build all sorts of newer computers but no parallel port. Trying to get away from 1990's technology
You will need to spend some time trying different GUI programs. GRBL does the control end in the Arduino but the PC needs to run a GUI that you like. I recommend running the latest version of GRBL, v1.1, but this means that not all GUI's support it. So far I know of UGS GRBL-Panel Candle bCNC If you want to run Linux on the PC, then UGS and bCNC will do that just fine, otherwise all will run on Windows. Even Windows 10.
I use Cut2D with GRBL controllers and it works like a charm so I'm sure that every other Vectric software will work as well. Just select GRBL as the post-processor. For most day to day tasks, I use GRBL-Panel and that is what I'd recommend. Configuring GRBL is probably going to be the only real difference and you only have to do that once. -D
