@paulvdh
Sorry didnt mean to offend. I really dont have strong feelings one way other the other on Arduino or other platforms. They are all just tools to do a job. Pick the best tool to suit the constraints.
Next project I’m working on will be cannibalizing a CNC engraver that my brother gave me when he closed his sign shop. The company that makes them locks the controller and the software and it costs $2500 and I’m forced to use their software for gcode processing.
So instead I plan on using the TI MSP430 Launchpad and make a new controller most likely running LinuxCNC.
Your network mill is pretty dang cool. Definitely a unique approach using your own language to run it.
I abandoned that project 10+ years ago because that simple router was not stiff enough for my purposes.
I later built another small mill / router and first tried to run it with “Machinekit” on a BBB, but I had some performance issues with LinuxCNC. Id tid work but the project itself is a bot too complex to understand.
Later I switched to GRBL, The way GRBL works is very similar to the concept I had developed, but mine was not completely finished and GRBL was further developed. I put one of the many forks of GRBL into a “Blue Pill” board, added some old fashioned 74ls buffers to drive the optocouplers in external stepper motor controllers and this combination works pretty good.
I think I took the GRBL clone from https://github.com/usbcnc/grbl
To control my CNC machine, I use bCNC, which also has some nice CAM preprocessing features such as adding tool offsets and “tabs”.
Friend of mine build a cnc router running on LinuxCNC that I help him set up; why I was originally thinking of using it. I hate the damn thing, joints he 3d printed, and the rails are just rigid conduit. It’s a toy compared to production machines I’ve worked on. He thinks it’s cool so that’s all that matters I guess.
There are some new custom UI’s made on Mach3 that are really appealing.
I started looking into GRBL last week. I have a STM32 NucleoF4 board coming to play around with. I’m going to be doing a conversational control setup on my lathe’s lead screw too after I get the engraver up and running.