Open Source CNC remote control device

CNC remote control

CNC-control is a fully Open Source microcontroller based USB CNC remote control device. All hardware specification and firmware is freely available for download under libre license (GPL).

Features

• Connected through USB to the CNC machine (LinuxCNC driver available).
• Up to 6 linear and 3 angular axes.
• Continuous or incremental jogging though buttons.
• Incremental jogging though torque encoder.
• Configurable feed override potentiometer.
• Master spindle control.
• Motion-halt button (soft-estop).
• Configurable twohand (deadman) switch.
• Displaying of machine state on the LCD (axis position, feed, etc...).
• Easily configurable though LinuxCNC HAL file.
• Easily extensible (completely open source under libre license).
• Firmware update through USB.

Prerequisites

• The LinuxCNC HAL driver requires LinuxCNC 2.5.0(-pre) or later.
• USB-2.0 or USB-3.0 port on the CNC controller computer.

FAQ

• Q: Why isn't there a real emergency stop switch?
  A: A real emergency stop switch cannot be implemented through USB. So a real estop would require an additional hardware wire to the CNC machine's motion controller. However, there is a software motion-stop switch, which stops all machine motion within the constraints of USB and userspace HAL component latencies.

Download

• cnc-control release 1.0: cnc-control-1.0.tar.bz2
• Older cnc-control releases can be found here.

Latest bleeding edge cnc-control can be downloaded using the Git version control software by issuing the following command:

git clone git://git.bues.ch/cnc-control.git

To browse the Git repository online, go to the gitweb interface.

LinuxCNC integration

See the README file in the software package for information on LinuxCNC integration.

License / Copyright

Copyright (C) Michael Büsch
Licensed under the GNU General Public License. See the sourcecode for details.