There is a pretty nice Windows-only project called GCodeSender that has been in use for the Shapeoko project since the early days. Why am I writing about this? I wanted a controller that would run on an old Pentium III laptop running Debian 6 – the only option was Universal G-Code-Sender written in Java, which unfortunately ran really slow on 256 MB of RAM due to the Java requirements. Qt was originally developed by Nokia (ok, Trolltech to be exact, bought by Nokia). To develop in Qt you must be proficient in C++. Qt is pretty cool because you can create a nice GUI application for Windows, Mac and Linux. It also gets some help from the QextSerialPort library to simplify choosing the correct USB serial port. Grbl Controller is written using the Qt cross-platform libraries. It is the only program I use with my Shapeoko in order to maximize the amount of real-world testing. ![]() I am using it to control my Shapeoko milling machine. Version 3.0 is has been optimized for the Arduino to control Grbl shields. It isn’t super smart, it just needs to give the user a nice way to get commands down to whatever controller they are using. Grbl Controller is software that is designed to send GCode to CNC machines, such as 3D milling machines.
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