PlanetCNC has - to our opinion - the easiest to use interface that allow a quick taking in hands. Plus, it runs perfectly on a Raspberry Pi 4, which allowed us to create a standalone electronic enclosure without any need to use an external computer. When we started designing the Mekanika CNC machine, we tested several controllers and software and PlanetCNC came on top in terms of software stability and robustness of electronic components. The software runs on Windows, Linux or Mac and is compatible to almost all CAM programs on the market and can import a vast variety of files like Gerber, PLT/HPGL, DXF or NC files. They offer many nice features out-of-the-box, like automatic tool length measure or tool change and support all compensation methods for common milling operations, as well as 3D milling. They have developed a single-board USB controller that allows up to four axes and manufacture everything in Slovenia, Europe. Except on industrial CNC machines, the control software is usually running on an external device like a computer. The electronics that control a CNC are basically composed like this:Įach axis is controlled by one or two motors Įach motor gets its instructions from a driver Ī central breakout board sends instructions to the different drivers, based on the information it gets from a control software Ī control software, which is directly connected to the controller with a transfer protocol (usually USB or Parallel DB25). It may be hard to make a choice, so here is our comparison of the most used CNC control software and why we've decided to implement PlanetCNC on Mekanika's CNC milling machine.īefore diving deeper into the pros and cons of each software, we need to understand how a CNC milling machine is controlled. Some are free or open source, while others are linked to a specific control board. There are a lot of different software out there. Once you've mastered CAD and CAM software to design your parts and prepare your G-code for milling, you need to familiarize yourself with a CNC control software for your machine.

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