I’ve been meaning to share this with the community for a few weeks now, but the end of year got in the way. I use a raspberry pi to drive the X-Controller and that has added flexibility to my setup. But this setup does not have a read-out or controls at the machine itself. The computer I use to drive it all is on a desk across the room about 10 feet away. Needless to say, doing tasks such as setting a work position origin had me jumping back and forth between the machine (looking at bit positions) and the laptop, pressing the 0.1mm step button to ease an axis into place. Also, it seemed to me that having to boot up the pi AND my laptop just to home the machine is a huge overhead in effort and time.
I was inspired by many of the projects that have built button controller s or adapted joysticks to drive GRBL, but decided I really wanted a proper jogging wheel, not just buttons to drive the spindle into position. Also, while I was at it, why not build most of the common functions of my workflow into it so I could get everything set up from one place. Instructions like home, set axis zero, move to origin, change workspace, and more, are now available in one place.
As a bonus, and inspired by how 3D printers are set up, the controller can accept gcode from a SD card and can stream it to GRBL itself, no need for a raspberry pi or laptop. This mode works, but does need some extra features that I think would make it more comfortable to use, such as a 2D visualization of the motions and the ability to report them back to a full system in case that is desired. Those things will come with time, but for now, this has made a huge difference in making my workflow more efficient, which in turns makes the work more comfortable and satisfying.
Anyhow, pictures below, some demo videos of the testing. The code is in github, if anyone else wishes to try their hand at it. I am happy to accept help to develop it further or to assist others if they wish to build their own.
Demo videos:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Code: GitHub - quezadaminter/GrblJogCtrl: Grbl hand-held controller firmware.
Schematic : GitHub - quezadaminter/GrblJogCtrlSchematic: Schematic for the embedded GRBL jog controller.