I’ve been trying to get my Altmill to connect properly and operate with Millmage. I selected the Sienci Altmill grblHal device setup as provided in Millmage. It appears Millmage is connecting to the Altmill via COM3. However, I can’t home the machine or even move the spindle carriage.
Anyone have a working setup that they can offer some tips? I’m very certain the com ports are working correctly in this Win 11 setup.
Thanks in advance.
Please enable “Show All” in the Console window, and send us a screenshot if you receive any errors.
Can you see an alternative port to connect to, next to the Devices button? The Altmill has 2 ports available - only one works for controlling the machine.
the G0 is MillMage sending a ‘hey, are you there?’ and not seeing a reply
It’s possible just that your e-stop is pressed.
is GSender still open?
Gsender was not open. I checked the estop and it wasn’t activated.
After checking the estop, I loaded Gsender, connected to the Altmill, then pressed the unlock button on Gsender. Closed Gsender, started Millmage, and I immediately saw a stream of data in the console from the Altmill controller. Was at that point able to home the machine.
So something is not unlocking the Altmill controller when I first connect with Millmage. Any ideas?
You may need to force a reset at first connect by pressing the Stop button in MillMage twice
@Colin I tried the reset suggestion, and this did not resolve the connection problem.
Interesting - could you try connecting to the Altmill with GSender first, perform your homing operation, then close GSender and open MillMage?
@Colin - If I connect to the Altmill via Gsender, complete homing, close Gsender and open Millmage, I can then home in Millmage. I also was able to move the gantry using the jog buttons. I haven’t done anything else beyond this since I’m not confident of the Millmage/Altmill connection stability.
You stated you had a Home cycle amd motion control issue. Are you also having Disconnected issues as well?
@MikeyH - no disconnect issue, I just don’t know what will happen next when trying more advanced steps with Millmage. Not saying there is a problem, just that I want to better understand what the software and hardware are doing before I try executing a tool path for example.
I should have said not certain of the Millmage/Altmill operation sequence.
I have the same problem. I will usually dry run the program with no tool in the spindle. Fewer surprises that way. 
Looks like you have a superlongboard in there; try ethernet for connectivity. I’m using a closely related board and find my connection extremely persistent, even relative to other senders.
As others have said, don’t have gsender open and dont constantly switch between senders; it doesn’t seem to like this much.
You could also try to just make a custom profile for it in millmage; this worked first time for me.
I used the profile selector provided in the latest Millmage release to setup my machine interface. Still had problems.
I’ve had to abandon this project as I have other things I need to get done.
Altmill bundle Jan-26-2026 - toolchange working.mmzip (8.1 KB)
Here’s my bundle with a table touchoff probe set up, it should work for you if the default doesnt for some reason. 4x4
Thanks for the file. I was delayed until today trying it. Unfortunately there was no difference with this file. Must be something with my setup that is unique.
