# Wireless Control of Mini Mill Drill CNC



## ofaf (Aug 19, 2022)

I have just finished the hardware modifications for upgrading my Grizzly G0781 milling machine to CNC.  Now, I am working on the electronics and software.  I want to control the machine wirelessly (Bluetooth or WiFi) and have spent untold hours searching for good information on how to do this.  What I have found on the Internet is, excuse the term, garbage.  

I'm pretty up on CNC in general.  My weakest area is in how to set up and use Bluetooth or WiFi in place of a USB cable to connect my PC to Bluetooth-enabled Arduino with grbl.  My controller is gSender which wants a COM port and USB cable connection to the Arduino.  Simply put, I want to replace the USB cable with a Bluetooth connection and the connection has to look like a COM port to gSender.  

Has anyone out there done this successfully?  I'd really appreciate some help.


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## moose4621 (Aug 20, 2022)

ofaf said:


> I have just finished the hardware modifications for upgrading my Grizzly G0781 milling machine to CNC.  Now, I am working on the electronics and software.  I want to control the machine wirelessly (Bluetooth or WiFi) and have spent untold hours searching for good information on how to do this.  What I have found on the Internet is, excuse the term, garbage.
> 
> I'm pretty up on CNC in general.  My weakest area is in how to set up and use Bluetooth or WiFi in place of a USB cable to connect my PC to Bluetooth-enabled Arduino with grbl.  My controller is gSender which wants a COM port and USB cable connection to the Arduino.  Simply put, I want to replace the USB cable with a Bluetooth connection and the connection has to look like a COM port to gSender.
> 
> Has anyone out there done this successfully?  I'd really appreciate some help.


I have a WiFi controlled CNC plasma running grbl.
I used a headless raspberry pi on the CNC which runs bcnc as the gcode sender to a uno based CNC board.
This has the advantage of being able to control the CNC from a smart phone, tablet, or PC. Or all three simultaneously!!
I would normally do my drawing on a laptop or PC, then connect to the raspberry pi in the workshop and transfer the file to it. Then using a smart phone as a pendant, jog the machine to start, or probe the work area, or what ever I needed to do before pressing the go button.
The machine can be fully controlled by any connected device via the vncviewer.
In my case, I used the raspberry pi as an access point but if there is WiFi already in your workshop, so much the better.


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## ofaf (Oct 11, 2022)

moose4621 said:


> I have a WiFi controlled CNC plasma running grbl.
> I used a headless raspberry pi on the CNC which runs bcnc as the gcode sender to a uno based CNC board.
> This has the advantage of being able to control the CNC from a smart phone, tablet, or PC. Or all three simultaneously!!
> I would normally do my drawing on a laptop or PC, then connect to the raspberry pi in the workshop and transfer the file to it. Then using a smart phone as a pendant, jog the machine to start, or probe the work area, or what ever I needed to do before pressing the go button.
> ...


Thanks for your input.  I have had success using Android with Bluetooth but cannot get Bluetooth to work with my PC.  If I use gSender on my PC with a USB connection to the UNO, everything works fine.  Not so when I try this with a Bluetooth connection.  It appears that gSender doesn't like BT.

I want to use my PC because of its large screen.  My old eyes don't like phones or tablets very much.


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