This is a new build. I use a HP with win 10, or surface pro win10. I have not purchased Lightburn yet but would like to..Machine is a 4ft x4ft bed with a Rattmmotor 4 axis control breakout board (i use only 3 ). Lightburn trial will not let me connect USB. I have manually selected GRBL but no connect. I may need to buy a different breakout board. Any insight would be appreciated. I also installed serial USB driver software.
If it’s that board, then:
The standout feature of the RATTMMOTOR 4 Axis CNC USB Mach3 Controller Breakout Board is its compatibility with Mach3 software
Which means LightBurn can generate G-Code that Mach3 can feed to the controller, but LightBurn cannot directly interact with the machine.
That is a Mach3 board - Mach3 does the motion planning on the Windows PC instead of the controller itself.
LightBurn does not do motion planning - so you’ll need to use Mach with this board, and you can send it gcode that LightBurn produces - but LightBurn will not directly control it.
If you want to do machining operations with your new machine, take a look at www.millmagesoftware.com - or docs.millmagesoftware.com for the download to our Release Candidate for our next piece of software.
1 Like
Thanks guys I purchased another board but it too does not connect, It said GRBL so what do I not understand? I started building CNC years ago with LPT. seemed simple. I made the breakout board myself. I did purchase Mach1 back then, and do still have it but not sure if that supports USB. now the machine is built but no control. I need a 24 volt i/o sys. motors are 3 amp 24vdc (have drives) and 12 volt laser with PWM. What should I buy? ESP32? I need terminals not pin connectors. I would love to share my builds.
The original GRBL firmware doc gives an overview:
If the board has a 32-bit processor, then it’s likely running firmware based on grblHAL:
While that’s a lot to digest, the general idea is that the microcontroller does what Mach once required a PC to accomplish: parse G-Code programs to produce motor control signals.
LightBurn converts your design into G-Code and feeds it through the USB connection into the controller, whereupon the magic happens.
Those depend on exactly which controller board you have and should be marked on the board, identified in the accompanying doc, or at least mentioned in the firmware’s repository. If none of those apply, you probably have an n-th generation clone of a board, so the challenge will be figuring out the original version of the board.
Photos, links to the board’s description, things like that, all will help us to look over your shoulder.
1 Like
Hi guys Im back. I did return those boards. Now have ESP32S dorea. Wroom. I managed to download (or upload as they call it) a board manager ESP32 wroom (all kits) thingy. after a small fight with 2102 driver. So now looking for sketch I guess to get CNC function? Beware an avalanch of stupid comming soon to a post neer you.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.