Hi All, I am quite new to the CNC world. I bought a cheap Chinese 3018 machine from amazon. I was able to get up and running really quickly and was happy with the machine (mostly carving black walnut and other hardwoods). However, I quickly outgrew it and have upgrade to a custom built 48" x 48" Open Builds Lead machine. I just purchased the BlackBox Controller and it should arrive in the next week. While I wait for it to arrive I am preparing some gcode files. I am using a program called DMAP2GCODE for some projects I am working on. The output of the program is a .NGC file. Is this file type going to be compatible with my BlackBox Controller and the Open Builds CONTROL software? Will I be able to simply open the file up in the Open Builds CONTROL software and start carving? I have little understanding of how different gcode file types work. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks - Mitch
If its plain text gcode inside just rename it to .gcode Gcode in the file also needs to be Grbl compatible of course (PS: Include the files in questions like these using the attach button, better to have it and check, otherwise best we can offer is an educated guess)
Thanks so much! I wasn't able to upload the .NGC file. But I changed the file type to .txt and uploaded it. I'm not sure if changing the file type changed anything else? Let me know what you think. Thanks!
I have used dmap2gcode on my GRBL based machine, i cannot recall any issues with the gcode (the blackbox is GRBL based)
Estlcam is the same way. I just open the .NGC file and save it as .NC and it works every time. Nothing gets changed.
Gcode is just text, just like any other programming language. The extension on the file simply does not change what is inside the file so you can just change it to whatever you need.
