I built a small CNC for engraving and PCB routing. I had intended to use GRBL open source software and hardware, but now I find that the available hardware (Grbl board) is not compatible with the available software (Grbl firmware). Apparently the boards I can get only work with Grbl firmware versions 0.8 and earlier because pins 11 and 12 switched function when Grbl firmware v0.9 came out. I’ve been told that I need to mod the board (not within my skill set) or get a board that will work with v0.9 firmware (found lots of boards but the all look like they are made by the same manufacturer that wade the one that won’t work.)
To be fair, the board works in every respect accept z end stop / homing, but that seems to be important if I intend to do tool changes.
Has anyone else encountered this and found a way to deal with it?
The other way to address this would be to modify the appropriate configuration files for Grbl and recompile it.
I believe @chamnit (Sonny Jeon, the lead developer for Grbl) provided specifics on that regarding the AtomCNC controller on the Shapeoko forums: Shapeoko CNC Router, Rigid, Accurate, Reliable, and Affordable — if not, see the docs: GitHub - grbl/grbl: An open source, embedded, high performance g-code-parser and CNC milling controller written in optimized C that will run on a straight Arduino
Do you need the functionality of the variable spindle PWM? If not, do as @WillAdams mentioned and edit the pin config in the firmware. In config.h, comment out #define VARIABLE_SPINDLE . I think that’s all you need to do. That will switch the z-axis limit back to pin 11 and pin 12 will become a spindle enable pin.