µCNC - A universal CNC firmware for microcontrollers
Heavily inspired by the by Grbl and LinuxCNC, µCNC started to take shape in the second half of 2019 in an attempt to come out with a G-Code interpreter/controller software/firmware that is both compact and powerful as Grbl and flexible and modular as LinuxCNC, with the following goals in mind:
- µCNC is written in C (GNU99 compliant). This gives the advantage of being supported for a large number of CPU/MCU and compilers available.
- Modular library based:
- Independent hardware. All MCU/hardware operations are written in a single translation unit that acts like a standardized HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) interface, leaving the CNC controlling code independent of the MCU architecture, has long has it has the necessary abilities to execute code and respond to interrupts in a predictable manner. Porting µCNC for a different MCU should be fairly straight forward.
- Independent kinematics. Another dimension of the HAL is the possibility of defining the translation between machine coordinates and motion. This should theoretically allow µCNC to be easily adaptable to several types of machines like cartesian, coreXY, deltas and others. µCNC supports up to 6 axis.
- Compatible with already existing tools and software. There is no point in trying to reinvent the wheel (the hole wheel at least :-P). For that reason µCNC (tries) to use the exact same protocol has Grbl. This allows it to easily integrate with the Grbl ecosystem.
µCNC is a completely free software. It took me a considerable amount of hours and effort to develop and debug so any help is appreciated. Building docs, testing and debugging, whatever. Also if you really like it and want help me keep the project running, you can help me to buy more equipment or simply buy me a coffee or two ;-)
µCNC is still in it's very early stages so it should be only used for test purposes for now. For production stages Grbl or other G-Codes interpreters/controllers should be used.
µCNC for now supports most of the RS274NGC v3:
List of Supported G-Codes in µCNC 0.01:
- Non-Modal Commands: G4, G10, G28, G30, G53, G92, G92.1, G92.2, G92.3
- Motion Modes: G0, G1, G2, G3, G38.2, G38.3, G38.4, G38.5, G80
- Feed Rate Modes: G93, G94
- Unit Modes: G20, G21
- Distance Modes: G90, G91
- Plane Select Modes: G17, G18, G19
- Tool Length Offset Modes: G49
- Cutter Compensation Modes: G40
- Coordinate System Modes: G54, G55, G56, G57, G58, G59, G59.1, G59.2, G59.3
- Control Modes: G61
- Program Flow: M2, M30(same has M2)
- Coolant Control: M7, M8, M9
- Spindle Control: M3, M4, M5
- Valid Non-Command Words: A, B, C, F, I, J, K, L, N, P, R, S, T, X, Y, Z
- Valid Non-Command Words: E (used by 3D printing firmwares like [Marlin](https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin))
TODO List of G-Codes in µCNC future releases:
- Tool Length Offset Modes: G43
- Program Flow: M0, M1
- Laser support
- PID control
µCNC currently supports up to:
- 6 independent axis
- 6 stepper step/dir drivers
- 6 limit switches (one per axis) (interrupt driven)
- 1 probe switch (interrupt driven)
- 1 feed hold input (interrupt driven)
- 1 cycle start/resume input (interrupt driven)
- 1 emergency stop (interrupt driven)
- 1 door open switch (interrupt driven)
- 4 pwm outputs
- 4 analog inputs
- 32 digital inputs
- 32 digital outputs
µCNC for configuration similar to Grbl it should (in theory) be able to keep up to 30Khz step rate. This still needs to be verified.
µCNC initial development was done both around Arduino UNO board just like GRBL. For that I used several UNO emulators but debugging was not easy. So a kind of virtual board (Windows PC) was created to test µCNC core code independently. It can run on:
- Arduino UNO
- Windows PC (used for simulation only - ISR on Windows doesn't allow to use it as a real alternative)
In the future µCNC will most probably be extended to:
- Arduino Mega
- Microchip PIC18F
- ARM
- Old PC with a RT OS???
- Other??
If you want to help extend the list of supported hardware, go to the mcus folder and follow the instructions.