Installation and Configuration of Software for the Banggod CNC Engraver

Installing and Configuring Software for the Banggood CNC Engraver

Overview

The electronics supplied with the Banggood engraver consists of an Arduino Nano board which is coupled to a cnc driver board. The Arduino runs a program called GRBL which interprets a subset of standard GCODE sent to it by a gcode sender application and sets certain output pins which supply STEP and DIRECTION signals to the driver board. The stepper motors coupled to the driver board then move the machine's 3 axes.

It's important to understand that the software supplied does not provide the latest version of any of the products included, nor are these the only alternatives for developing code or running jobs on the machine. More information will be provided later.

The software Components

There are 4 things which you must address to arrive at a working system.

1. Serial over USB Drivers
2. Installation/Upload of the GRBL code
3. Installation of JAVA (you may already have this installed)
4. Installation of the Universal Gcode sender

Drivers

Because the machine communicates via a serial connection over a USB cable, a driver is required on the host computer. Banggood supplies a driver which will work for Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 10. It may work for other versions of windows, but I have not tested them. With the cnc machine disconnected from the computer, run the executable file provided.

A window will appear:

Click on the Install button and you should receive a message that the driver has been successfully pre-installed:

Now connect the cnc machine to the computer with the usb cable. At this point you should see a message indicating that the Arduino device has been detected and the driver loaded. If you wish, you can examine the system's device configuration to see what was configured. If you have multiple serial ports configured, you will want to check to see what port the Arduino is on as you will need this information for the next step. In Windows 7 as an example, click on Start, then  Devices and printers. At the bottom of the page you should see something like this:

Installation of GRBL

With the driver successfully installed and the arduino detected, you can proceed to upload the GRBL code to the Auduino. Banggood has provided a version of Xloader for this purpose. At the time of writing the version of Xloader supplied was current but you can check for a newer version here: http://xloader.russemotto.com/ if you wish.

Run Xloader, setting the serial port to your arduino port and the Arduino version to the nano as shown in the program window below. The baud rate for the version of Xloader supplied when used with the nano is 57600.

The actual path to the hex file will vary from system to system. Be sure to get the Arduino type and com ports correct. Click upload. When complete Xloader will show the number of bytes uploaded. The most common problem is an incorrectly set baud rate. If you get an error “can't open port”, close the Xloader and re-run it with the correct setting. Simply changing the baud rate without closing and re-running Xloader will not work.

Note that the version of GRBL supplied is not the latest available. I suggest that you start with the Banggood supplied code. Later when you have a working system, you might want to investigate the newer code to see what new features and bug fixes it offers. You can find the latest version of GRBL here: https://github.com/gnea/grbl/releases

Note: If you are experienced with Arduino, you may wish to use the Arduino program itself to load code into your system. If so, you will have to download the source code and use the Arduino program to compile and upload it. The Arduino program cannot upload the hex file supplied.

Universal Gcode Sender

Banggood supplies a version of the Universal Gcode Sender (UGS). This is a JAVA application and if you do not already have JAVA installed, you will need to do so.

JAVA can be found here: https://java.com/en/download/

Follow the instructions found there to install the product. Once installed, the UGS can be run by simply double clicking on the supplied JAR file.

The supplied version of UGS is not the latest release. This is a product under constant development.

Note that if you have chosen to upload a different version of GRBL than the one supplied, you may have to update your GCODE sender.

UGS has recently split into 2 versions with different user interfaces.

The latest version of the UGS are here: https://github.com/winder/builds/tree/master/UniversalGCodeSender

Be sure that you have installed a compatible version of JAVA.

Run your chosen gcode sender and configure the application to communicate with your engraver. Set the serial port to your Arduino port and the baud rate to 115,200. Click OPEN and a message should appear verifying connection. Now enter the command $$ in the command line and press enter. You should get a dump of the GRBL configuration parameters.

If you don't get the indicated responses from GRBL, check the port and baud rate settings and try again.

Configuring GRBL

Now that you have a working arduino with GRBL loaded, you can configure it to suit the machine. GRBL operation is determined by a set of parameters located in the firmware.

The values in values $100 to $122 are machine dependent and must be set to the values in the table above for the Banggood engraver. For each value, enter a command: $val=number. For the X-Step value you would enter $100=400 and press enter. When done, enter the command $$ to get a dump like the one above to verify that your data entry is correct.

Testing

Now that you can communicate with the machine, and the configuration is correct, use the controls in the UGS to move the carriage around. The control panel in the supplied version of Universal Gcode Sender looks like the first image and the latest builds look like the following image.

Verify that the direction in which the movement occurs is correct. In some cases, stepper motor wiring or other factors may result in the directions being backward. In this case you will have to set a value in $3. This value is a bitmask. To set it, decide which axes are moving in the wrong direction and use the following table:

X is backward, Y and Z are OK: use $3=1

Y is backward, X and Z are OK: use $3=2

Z is backward, X and Y are OK: use $3=4

These values can be added to invert combinations of Axes. For example, if you want to reverse the direction of both X and Z, set $3=5. To invert all three axes, set $3=7.

For an in-depth discussion of configuring GRBL (0.9 version), you can visit https://github.com/grbl/grbl/wiki/Configuring-Grbl-v0.9

Alternatives to UGS

There are a number of alternative Gcode senders compatible with GRBL. Here are some:

UGS - new GUI

A further development of the Universal Gcode sender, this product has a new look. You can download it here along with the latest classic UGS: https://github.com/winder/Universal-G-Code-Sender

bCNC

bCNC is a python application. The general steps to download and use BCNC are:

1) Download Python and install it: https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-2710/
2) BCNC requires pyserial – Available here: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyserial
3) Download and Uncompress bCNC https://github.com/vlachoudis/bCNC/archive/master.zip
4) Then just run the .bat file: "C:\bCNC\bCNC.bat"
5) Set the correct COM port and connect

Chilipeppr

Chilipeppr runs entirely in a web browser (well almost). It does require a serial port server which you can download and run inside Chilipeppr. Chilipeppr prefers the Chrome browser, but Firefox also works well.

To experience Chilipeppr, just point your browser at: http://chilipeppr.com/grbl

GRBL-PANEL

GRBL Panel seeks to emulate the control panels of professional CNC machines. You can download the latest release here: https://github.com/gerritv/Grbl-Panel/files/737239/GrblPanel-Release-1.0.9.13.zip

Artcam

The version of Artcam supplied with the machine is quite old, but it does have the virtue of being free. It is quite a versatile package capable of 2d and 3d projects.

The use of Artcam is very well covered by a large number of tutorials on Youtube. Be aware when consulting these videos that the version of Artcam you are using is 8 years out of date and some functions may have changed and others shown in the videos may not be available in the version you have.

Artcam Installation

First a word of warning. The artcam installation includes a file ACQ.DLL which has been known to trigger a false positive in some anti-virus programs. Observe the installation carefully. You may need to turn off your anti-virus during the install, or change your anti-virus as I chose to do (from AVG to AVAST).

Begin by double clicking the engraving software.zip file in your download folder. I use Winrar, which gives this:

 Then double click the engraving folder in the winrar window which will give this:

 

Now right click on the ArtCAM-EN folder and select  "extract to a specified folder". In the dialog which pops up, create a new folder called "engraving" in the disk of your choice, and complete the extract.

Now navigate to the folder you chose and double click it. You should see this:

Double click the ArtCAM-EN folder and you should see this:

Continue by double clicking the ArtCAM folder and you will get this:

Now right click the Install.cmd file and select run as administrator. If you are installing on a system running Windows XP, use the following procedure:

After Install.cmd has executed successfully, you will be able to double click ArtCAM.exe to run the program.  Right click and drag the ArtCAM.exe file to your desktop and select create shortcut to make running the program easier in the future.

If you receive script errors when running ArtCAM, you will need to re-run the Install.cmd script - be sure to execute it as Administrator as shown above.

Alternate CAD/CAM Programs

There are quite a number of inexpensive (or even free)  CAD/CAM programs that you can download and use to create gcode for the Banggood engraver.

Some of these programs are simple and easy to learn while others are more complex and require a good deal of study before you become proficient.

Here is a small list of them with comments:

FUSION 360 is at the top of the list because it is a full featured 3D cad/cam package which large companies pay a considerable sum to use, but which is offered free to students and hobbyists. It is not a simple product but offers tremendous capabilities to those willing to invest the time. Learn more here: http://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/overview

CAMBAM is a CAM software package with a limited set of CAD capabilities which is in wide use around the world. It is not free, but can be run 40 times free of charge. Learn more and download it here: http://www.cambam.info/

INKSCAPE is a professional vector graphics editor for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It's free and open source. Get it here: https://inkscape.org/en/

DXF2GCODE is an opensource tool for converting 2D dxf drawings to gcode. Its Sourceforge page is here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/dxf2gcode/

There are many more.