K40-GRBLcntrlr VS Grbl_Esp32

K40-GRBLcntrlr

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Tracking mentions began in Dec 2020.

Grbl_Esp32

• image binarization
  2 projects | reddit.com/r/esp32 | 22 Jul 2022
• Show HN: I built a CNC-machine from scratch, using 40x 3D-printed parts
  5 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 3 Nov 2021

  I understand you put thought and time into your approach and it was a hobby to learn more abotu the process (and thus you know about MPCNC but decided to make your own). I've also build similar systems and I've learned some timesaving tricks that have paid off in terms of hobbyist enjoyment.

  I really like buying the majority of the parts from a place like OPenBuildsPartStore, rahter than assembling frames from channel manually. Time/cost/quality tradeoff is hard to beat here.

  I strongly recommend switching to Grbl_Esp32 https://github.com/bdring/Grbl_Esp32 with external controllers (this board https://www.tindie.com/products/33366583/6-pack-universal-cn... with these plugins https://www.tindie.com/products/33366583/external-stepper-mo... and these controllers https://www.amazon.com/STEPPERONLINE-1-0-4-2A-20-50VDC-Micro...). That's what I ended up with because tuning current using the little pots is dumb, and you want a TON of current going to those huge motors. ESP32 + Grbl has a bunch of nice features that aren't in plain old Uno GRBL.

  My system has high torque NEMA23 with no gears (same motor for all 3 axes), I can't see any situations where adding more torque to the X or Y axes using a smaller gearer stepper makes sense.

• Pen plotters: not just output devices
  3 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 5 May 2021

  if you want to see how it's done in modern plotters/CNC, Bart Dring's [Grbl_ESP32](https://github.com/bdring/Grbl_Esp32) is fairly easy to follow with good docs. I have one of Bart's plotters, as I don't have space or money for an Axidraw with all my other old plotters around the place.

  For actual optimization of input files, [vpype](https://github.com/abey79/vpype)'s the one most people use.

  Going back to really old/simple plotters, there wasn't enough code space to do any optimization. For example, the (fairly terrible) Commodore 1520 roll paper plotter had 2KB of ROM for all the 6502-compatible code its micro-controller used. When I first looked into the [firmware](https://e4aws.silverdr.com/hacks/6500_1/), I was pretty shocked that it printed text by scanning a table of character data from the start every time. Then I realized that even storing pointers for each character would use up about ⅛ of total storage, and the mechanical plotter mechanism was always way behind anything the code could do. So small mattered more than efficient