cncjs-pendant-shuttle

A cncjs pendant to connect a Contour Design ShuttleXpress to the raspberry pi that is running cncjs.

Optionally if a 20 character x 4 line LCD is connected via the i2c bus then it will be used.

This pendant uses grbl 1.1 jogging commands and so will only work with grbl controlled machines

Installation Prerequisite

You need to be running cncjs with the cancelJog PR #512 applied. This PR has not yet been merged, so in the mean time you can find a version of cncjs with this PR merged (and no other changes) at https://github.com/bensuffolk/cncjs

To upgrade make sure you have git installed

sudo apt install git

Then download and build the modified version

git clone https://github.com/bensuffolk/cncjs
cd cncjs
npm install

Remove the current version and install the new one (make sure you are still in the cncjs directory from above)

sudo npm uninstall -g cncjs
sudo npm install -g --unsafe-perm

Installation

git clone https://github.com/bensuffolk/cncjs-pendant-shuttle
cd cncjs-pendant-shuttle

We need to have udev development libraries / headers installed to build the node package.

sudo apt install libudev-dev

By default, the udev system adds ShuttleXpress as root only access. To fix this, you need to copy 99-Shuttle.rules to /etc/udev/rules.d and reboot

sudo cp 99-Shuttle.rules /etc/udev/rules.d

Now reboot and move onto the Installation of the pendant

sudo reboot

Pendant Install

cd cncjs-pendant-shuttle
npm install
sudo npm install -g --unsafe-perm

Auto run on boot

Edit the cncjs-pendant-shuttle.service file to set the command line options you require.

sudo cp cncjs-pendant-shuttle.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable cncjs-pendant-shuttle
sudo systemctl start cncjs-pendant-shuttle

Usage

bin/cncjs-pendant-shuttle -p port

If you have installed cncjs via the cncjs/cncjs-pi-raspbian script then you will need

bin/cncjs-pendant-shuttle -p port -c ~/.cncjs/cncrc.cfg

Command line options

-p --port port REQUIRED The serial port on the cncjs server that is connected to Grbl. e.g. /dev/ttyS0

-s --secret secret The cncjs authentication secret. Defaults to reading from the rc file

-c --config rc file The cncjs server rc file. Defaults to ~./cncrc

-b --baudrate baudrate The baudrate of the connection to Grbl. Defaults to 115200

-v --verbose Increase the ammount of loging. Can be specified multiple times, e.g. -vvv

--socket-address address The socket address of the cncjs server. Defaults to localhost

--socket-port port The socket port of the cncjs server. Defaults to 8000

--access-token-lifetime lifetime The lenght of time the authentication token will last. Defaults to 30d

--no-lcd Do not attempt to conect to an LCD

--i2c-bus bus The i2c bus that the LCD is connected to. Defaults to 1

--lcd-address address The i2c address of the LCD. Defaults to 0x27

--step-distance distance ... Set the Step distances to toggle between when pressing the Change Step Distance button. Defaults to 0.01 0.1 1

--reverse-x Reverse the X axis jog direction.

--reverse-y Reverse the Y axis jog direction.

--reverse-z Reverse the Z axis jog direction.

--button-x button The button number for X. Defaults to 2

--button-y button The button number for Y. Defaults to 3

--button-z button The button number for Z. Defaults to 4

--button-step button The button number for Step. Defaults to 4

--plate-height height The height of the proble plate. Defaults to 20

--probe-feedrate feedrate The feedrate to use for probing. Defaults to 75

Jogging

Axis X button Set X Axis (Default Axis on connection). See --button-x

Axis Y button Set Y Axis See --button-y

Axis Z button Set Z Axis. See --button-z

Button Step Change Step Distance (defaults to 0.01 0.1 1). See --step-distance

Press an Axis button to change which Axis will be the target of the jog. If you press and hold an Axis button for 1 second it will zero the work coordinates to the current position. e.g. G10 L20 P1 X0 for the X Axis

Turn the center jog dial and each increment will step the selected axis by the selected step distance.

Twist the outer shuttle ring the selected axis will continue to move in the twisted directino until released. Twising the ring further will increase the speed of movement.

The shuttle speed is automatically calculated based on the maximum feed rate and acceleration for the selected axis. If you have a machine with slow acceleration rate, then the shuttle will be naturally slower (in order to make sure the shuttle does not run on due to deceleration time)

Probing

Probing is initialted by holding the Probe Button down for 1 second.

The probing sequence will being by lowering the Z axis using the feedrate specified in --probe-feedrate until it makes contact with the probe p[ate.

At this point it will raise the Z axis by 1mm, and being probing again at a lower rate of 20mm / Min.

Once it makes contact with the probe plate a second time it will zero out the Z axis work coordinates using the --plate-height which defaults to 20mm.

It will then return the Z axis to the position it was in before probing began.

If during probing you realise you have made a mistake, e.g. you forgot to attache the probe wire or put the plate in the right place, you can press the Probe Button again and probing will be immediatly stopped and the Z axis returned to the position it was in before probing began.