We have an x-carve controlled using an x-controller.
I was wondering whether the X-controller supports the cutter compensation commands G41 and G42? We are using 3rd party software to send g-code to the x-controller and commands G42/G41 always result in a return ‘unsupported command’.
I know that easel doesn’t support the command but I was hoping the controller would, and that this allows for more fine-grained control?
this might help you with what commands are accepted.
https://inventables.desk.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2258567-easel-g-code-spec
this is for the GRBL that Inventables has on the controller. you can of course use a controller that is not dependent on GRBL specific g-code and that would change what you can and can not use.
That is what Easel supports and not what GRBL supports (they don’t necessarily align, for instance GRBL supports G38.2 but Easel does not).
Based on what I see, I can’t tell if it actually supports G42/G41. But I’d actually ask, why do you need it?
grbl does not support these G-codes.
Error message is appropriate.
Does that mean that the x-carve doesn’t support cutter compensation?
Yes.
this is only if you use the GRBL from Inventables. I know that some think that this is only for Easel but this is the modification that was made for the controller that comes with the X-Carve, you still have a choice to use other controllers or other flavours of GRBL. for instance you can use @ChristianKnull version of Estlcam which uses its own GRBL to control the machine. check other options to get what you need.
there is of course more than one way to do things.
this is what Inventables FORK of GRBL supports. this of course is by no means the only version of GRBL that can be used.
this might help to understand that this is Inventables FORK
and this of course is the main repo of GRBL
Not sure you are using the terminology correctly. I think that it’s more accurate to say that Estlcam uses it’s own firmware that can support an Arduino with the grbl pin layout.
My point of reference comes from the Estlcam manual:
•If you want to go back to GRBL / Easel press “Restore Controller”
The Inventables 1.0c fork differs from the “official grbl” release by just changing the default grbl parameters to those that the X-carve uses.
More information from the Estlcam author:
There are very few CAM programs offering Estlcam postprocessors at the moment so you usually need to try different settings. Estlcams requirements are:
•G00 to G03 - anything else will be ignored.
(Commands like e.g. drill cycles need to be broken down into individual G00 / G01 commands)
•X/Y/Z absolute, I/J relative
•X/Y plane only.
•M00 M01 M03 M05 M08 M09 M10 M11 supported
•Formatting is usually no issue.
So, it doesn’t support G41/G42 either.
No, that is what Easel supports. The Inventables fork of GRBL doesn’t change what commands GRBL supports, it only changes some compile time options and the default $$ values.
I run the Inventables fork and use G38.2 for probing. Easel does not support it but it works when I use UGCS.
Thanks for the pissing match guys. I know that they are different that is why I posted the links to show they are different. I know that they support more than what is available in Easel that is why I posted that. I also posted that there are other controllers out there can support what he is wanting other than GRBL based that is why I posted that. I stand on the fact that there is more than one way to do this and he needs to check them out and try them and go with what works best for him. sorry for posting I was trying to get the OP to read about some options about what did what with which system. explaining that there are different versions out there and different controllers. but once again I should have kept quite. I stand corrected.
I guess everyone looks at things from a different point of view.
My intent here was to provide more accurate information for the OP to work with.
His original post asked about the X-carve and grbl. That’s the information I provided.
If you want to expand the post to all CNC machines, then you are correct. There are lots of options that support G41/G42.
I did not intend to get into a pissing match, just trying to steer the OP to the proper information that was requested.
Sorry if my intents were misconstrued.
you can use the X-Carve with other controllers that even Inventables sells. this would allow Mach 3 or Mach 4 plus Linuxcnc to be the controller. not just other but Inventalbes X-Carve and supported by Inventables as this is what they sell.
https://www.inventables.com/technologies/3-axis-dsp-based-digital-stepper-driver
That’s new to me. I didn’t know they added that. Thanks for the update.
