CNC and 3d printing Firmware hotswap?

Controllers Smoothie
1

So I am about to convert my 3d printer to also do some milling. I thought I came across this before and they said it was possible.

So I will be making a gantry that is hot swappable with the hotend and the spindle. I will be going back and forth a bit so I was curious if it is possible to have a single firmware program set up for either or depending on what file is read? Or no?

Thanks,

Dustin

Imported from wikidot

2

We don’t have any feature to support swapping config files.
However why would you want to ? If the gantry stays the same, you can have a single config file that supports both milling and 3D printing at the same time, there is no need for two files.

3

Well I read this in the documentation but the next question is where will I wire in my spindle controller? Since I already have my hotend 1 and heated bed wired. Does it matter where then? I know there are build in mosfets but I rather run the spindle of a separate controller to keep from using too much current through the board.

4

See the spindle section in http://smoothieware.org/cnc-mill-guide, using an external controller is actually the recommended method, and it is fully supported.
And it is no problem at all having both a hotend/bed/whatever, and a spindle, configured at the same time.

5

Awesome I thought I read through that enough but obviously I did not. The last thing I am a bit concerned with the g code between CNC and 3d printing g code. Will I need a CAM software that will output 3d printing g code or do I enable grbl_mode?

6

that’s a choice you have to make
you can’t 3D print in grbl_mode
but you can CNC mill while not in grbl_mode, it’s just a bit inconvenient ( because the “reprap” gcodes aren’t as convenient for cnc milling )
it’ll work though, we didn’t have grbl_mode until months ago, and people were milling happily without it

7

Okay great! Is there a reference to the difference between g codes in any githubs do you know? I assume Would be okay if everyone else was but I wouldn’t mind making sure.

8

We are writing the reference at the moment : http://smoothieware.org/supported-g-codes