- Increment to v1.1e due to new laser features.
- After several discussions with some prominent laser people, a few
tweaks to the new laser mode has been installed.
- LASER: M3 behaves in a constant power mode.
- LASER: M4 behaves in a dynamic power mode, where the laser power is
automatically adjusted based on how fast Grbl is moving relative to the
programmed feed rate. This is the same as the CONSTANT_POWER_PER_RATE
config.h option in the last version. NOTE: When not in motion in M4,
Grbl automatically turns off the laser. Again, it only operates while
moving!
- LASER: Only G1, G2, and G3 motion modes will turn on the laser. So,
this means that G0, G80 motion modes will always keep the laser
disabled. No matter if M3/M4 are active!
- LASER: A spindle stop override is automatically invoked when a laser
is put in a feed hold. This behavior may be disabled by a config.h
option.
- Lots of little tweaks to the g-code parser to help streamline it a
bit. It should no effect how it operates. Generally just added a parser
flag to track and execute certain scenarios a little more clearly.
- Jog motions now allow line numbers to be passed to it and will be
displayed in the status reports.
- Fixed a CoreXY homing bug.
- Fixed an issue when $13 is changed, WCO isn’t sent immediately.
- Altered how spindle PWM is set in the stepper ISR. Updated on a step
segment basis now. May need to change this back if there are any
oddities from doing this.
- Updated some documentation. Clarified why M0 no longer showing up in
$G and why a `1.` floating point values are shown with no decimals,
like so `1`.
- New $SLP sleep mode that will disable spindle, coolant, and stepper
enable pins. Allows users to disable their steppers without having to
alter their settings. A reset is required to exit and re-initializes in
alarm state.
- Laser mode wasn’t updating the spindle PWM correctly (effected
spindle speed overrides) and not checking for modal states either.
Fixed both issues.
- While in laser mode, parking motions are ignored, since the power off
delay with the retract motion would burn the material. It will just
turn off and not move. A restore immediately powers up and resumes. No
delays.
- Changing rpm max and min settings did not update the spindle PWM
calculations. Now fixed.
- Increased default planner buffer from 16 to 17 block. It seems to be
stable, but need to monitor this carefully.
- Removed software debounce routine for limit pins. Obsolete.
- Fixed a couple parking motion bugs. One related to restoring
incorrectly and the other the parking rate wasn’t compatible with the
planner structs.
- Fixed a bug caused by refactoring the critical alarms in a recent
push. Soft limits weren’t invoking a critical alarm.
- Updated the documentation with the new sleep feature and added some
more details to the change summary.
- Feature: Realtime feed, rapid, and spindle speed overrides. These
alter the running machine state within tens of milliseconds!
- Feed override: 100%, +/-10%, +/-1% commands with values 1-200% of
programmed feed
- Rapid override: 100%, 50%, 25% rapid rate commands
- Spindle speed override: 100%, +/-10%, +/-1% commands with values
50-200% of programmed speed
- Override values have configurable limits and increments in
config.h.
- Feature: Realtime toggle overrides for spindle stop, flood coolant,
and optionally mist coolant
- Spindle stop: Enables and disables spindle during a feed hold.
Automatically restores last spindles state.
- Flood and mist coolant: Immediately toggles coolant state until
next toggle or g-code coolant command.
- Feature: Jogging mode! Incremental and absolute modes supported.
- Grbl accepts jogging-specific commands like $J=X100F50. An axis
word and feed rate are required. G20/21 and G90/G91 commands are
accepted.
- Jog motions can be canceled at any time by a feed hold `!`
command. The buffer is automatically flushed. (No resetting required).
- Jog motions do not alter the g-code parser state so GUIs don’t
have to track what they changed and correct it.
- Feature: Laser mode setting. Allows Grbl to execute continuous
motions with spindle speed and state changes.
- Feature: Significantly improved status reports. Overhauled to cram in
more meaningful data and still make it smaller on average.
- All available data is now sent by default, but does not appear if
it doesn’t change or is not active.
- Machine position(MPos) or work position(WPos) is reported but not
both at the same time. Instead, the work coordinate offsets (WCO)are
sent intermittently whenever it changes or refreshes after 10-30 status
reports. Position vectors are easily computed by WPos = MPos - WCO.
- All data has changed in some way. Details of changes are in the
markdown documents and wiki.
- Feature: 16 new realtime commands to control overrides. All in
extended-ASCII character space.
- While they are not easily typeable and requires a GUI, they can’t
be accidentally triggered by some latent character in the g-code
program and have tons of room for expansion.
- Feature: New substates for HOLD and SAFETY DOOR. A `:x` is appended
to the state, where `x` is an integer and indicates a substate.
- For example, each integer of a door state describes in what phase
the machine is in during parking. Substates are detailed in the
documentation.
- Feature: With the alarm codes, homing and probe alarms have been
expanded with more codes to provide more exact feedback on what caused
the alarm.
- Feature: New hard limit check upon power-up or reset. If detected, a
feedback message to check the limit switches sent immediately after the
welcome message.
- May be disabled in config.h.
- OEM feature: Enable/disable `$RST=` individual commands based on
desired behavior in config.h.
- OEM feature: Configurable EEPROM wipe to prevent certain data from
being deleted during firmware upgrade to a new settings version or
`RST=*` command.
- OEM feature: Enable/disable the `$I=` build info write string with
external EEPROM write example sketch.
- This prevents a user from altering the build info string in
EEPROM. This requires the vendor to write the string to EEPROM via
external means. An Arduino example sketch is provided to accomplish
this. This would be useful for contain product data that is
retrievable.
- Tweak: All feedback has been drastically trimmed to free up flash
space for the v1.0 release.
- The `$` help message is just one string, listing available
commands.
- The `$$` settings printout no longer includes descriptions. Only
the setting values. (Sorry it’s this or remove overrides!)
- Grbl `error:` and `ALARM:` responses now only contain codes. No
descriptions. All codes are explained in documentation.
- Grbl’s old feedback style may be restored via a config.h, but
keep in mind that it will likely not fit into the Arduino’s flash space.
- Tweak: Grbl now forces a buffer sync or stop motion whenever a g-code
command needs to update and write a value to EEPROM or changes the work
coordinate offset.
- This addresses two old issues in all prior Grbl versions. First,
an EEPROM write requires interrupts to be disabled, including stepper
and serial comm. Steps can be lost and data can be corrupted. Second,
the work position may not be correlated to the actual machine position,
since machine position is derived from the actual current execution
state, while work position is based on the g-code parser offset state.
They are usually not in sync and the parser state is several motions
behind. This forced sync ensures work and machine positions are always
correct.
- This behavior can be disabled through a config.h option, but it’s
not recommended to do so.
- Tweak: To make status reports standardized, users can no longer
change what is reported via status report mask, except for only
toggling machine or work positions.
- All other data fields are included in the report and can only be
disabled through the config.h file. It’s not recommended to alter this,
because GUIs will be expecting this data to be present and may not be
compatible.
- Tweak: Homing cycle and parking motion no longer report a negative
line number in a status report. These will now not report a line number
at all.
- Tweak: New `[Restoring spindle]` message when restoring from a
spindle stop override. Provides feedback what Grbl is doing while the
spindle is powering up and a 4.0 second delay is enforced.
- Tweak: Override values are reset to 100% upon M2/30. This behavior
can be disabled in config.h
- Tweak: The planner buffer size has been reduced from 18 to 16 to free
up RAM for tracking and controlling overrides.
- Tweak: TX buffer size has been increased from 64 to 90 bytes to
improve status reporting and overall performance.
- Tweak: Removed the MOTION CANCEL state. It was redundant and didn’t
affect Grbl’s overall operation by doing so.
- Tweak: Grbl’s serial buffer increased by +1 internally, such that 128
bytes means 128, not 127 due to the ring buffer implementation. Long
overdue.
- Tweak: Altered sys.alarm variable to be set by alarm codes, rather
than bit flags. Simplified how it worked overall.
- Tweak: Planner buffer and serial RX buffer usage has been combined in
the status reports.
- Tweak: Pin state reporting has been refactored to report only the
pins “triggered” and nothing when not “triggered”.
- Tweak: Current machine rate or speed is now included in every report.
- Tweak: The work coordinate offset (WCO) and override states only need
to be refreshed intermittently or reported when they change. The
refresh rates may be altered for each in the config.h file with
different idle and busy rates to lessen Grbl’s load during a job.
- Tweak: For temporary compatibility to existing GUIs until they are
updated, an option to revert back to the old style status reports is
available in config.h, but not recommended for long term use.
- Tweak: Removed old limit pin state reporting option from config.h in
lieu of new status report that includes them.
- Tweak: Updated the defaults.h file to include laser mode, altered
status report mask, and fix an issue with a missing invert probe pin
default.
- Refactor: Changed how planner line data is generated and passed to
the planner and onto the step generator. By making it a struct
variable, this saved significant flash space.
- Refactor: Major re-factoring of the planner to incorporate override
values and allow for re-calculations fast enough to immediately take
effect during operation. No small feat.
- Refactor: Re-factored the step segment generator for re-computing new
override states.
- Refactor: Re-factored spindle_control.c to accommodate the spindle
speed overrides and laser mode.
- Refactor: Re-factored parts of the codebase for a new jogging mode.
Still under development though and slated to be part of the official
v1.0 release. Hang tight.
- Refactor: Created functions for computing a unit vector and value
limiting based on axis maximums to free up more flash.
- Refactor: The spindle PWM is now set directly inside of the stepper
ISR as it loads new step segments.
- Refactor: Moved machine travel checks out of soft limits function
into its own since jogging uses this too.
- Refactor: Removed coolant_stop() and combined with
coolant_set_state().
- Refactor: The serial RX ISR forks off extended ASCII values to
quickly assess the new override realtime commands.
- Refactor: Altered some names of the step control flags.
- Refactor: Improved efficiency of the serial RX get buffer count
function.
- Refactor: Saved significant flash by removing and combining print
functions. Namely the uint8 base10 and base2 functions.
- Refactor: Moved the probe state check in the main stepper ISR to
improve its efficiency.
- Refactor: Single character printPgmStrings() went converted to direct
serial_write() commands to save significant flash space.
- Documentation: Detailed Markdown documents on error codes, alarm
codes, messages, new real-time commands, new status reports, and how
jogging works. More to come later and will be posted on the Wiki as
well.
- Documentation: CSV files for quick importing of Grbl error and alarm
codes.
- Bug Fix: Applied v0.9 master fixes to CoreXY homing.
- Bug Fix: The print float function would cause Grbl to crash if a
value was 1e6 or greater. Increased the buffer by 3 bytes to help
prevent this in the future.
- Bug Fix: Build info and startup string EEPROM restoring was not
writing the checksum value.
- Bug Fix: Corrected an issue with safety door restoring the proper
spindle and coolant state. It worked before, but breaks with laser mode
that can continually change spindle state per planner block.
- Bug Fix: Move system position and probe position arrays out of the
system_t struct. Ran into some compiling errors that were hard to track
down as to why. Moving them out fixed it.
- Tons of new stuff in this release, which is fairly stable and well
tested. However, much more is coming soon!
- Real-time parking motion with safety door. When this compile option
is enabled, an opened safety door will cause Grbl to automatically feed
hold, retract, de-energize the spindle/coolant, and parks near Z max.
After the door is closed and resume is commanded, this reverses and the
program continues as if nothing happened. This is also highly
configurable. See config.h for details.
- New spindle max and min rpm ‘$’ settings! This has been requested
often. Grbl will output 5V when commanded to turn on the spindle at its
max rpm, and 0.02V with min rpm. The voltage and the rpm range are
linear to each other. This should help users tweak their settings to
get close to true rpm’s.
- If the new max rpm ‘$’ setting is set = 0 or less than min rpm, the
spindle speed PWM pin will act like a regular on/off spindle enable
pin. On pin D11.
- BEWARE: Your old EEPROM settings will be wiped! The new spindle rpm
settings require a new settings version, so Grbl will automatically
wipe and restore the EEPROM with the new defaults.
- Control pin can now be inverted individually with a
CONTROL_INVERT_MASK in the cpu_map header file. Not typical for users
to need this, but handy to have.
- Fixed bug when Grbl receive too many characters in a line and
overflows. Previously it would respond with an error per overflow
character and another acknowledge upon an EOL character. This broke the
streaming protocol. Now fixed to only respond with an error after an
EOL character.
- Fixed a bug with the safety door during an ALARM mode. You now can’t
home or unlock the axes until the safety door has been closed. This is
for safety reasons (obviously.)
- Tweaked some the Mega2560 cpu_map settings . Increased segment buffer
size and fixed the spindle PWM settings to output at a higher PWM
frequency.
- Generalized the delay function used by G4 delay for use by parking
motion. Allows non-blocking status reports and real-time control during
re-energizing of the spindle and coolant.
- Added spindle rpm max and min defaults to default.h files.
- Added a new print float for rpm values.
- Tweaked the previous EEPROM restore implementation and added new
functionality.
- `$RST=$` restores the `$$` grbl settings back to firmware defaults,
which are set when compiled.
- `$RST=#` restores the `$#` parameters in EEPROM. At times it’s useful
to clear these and start over, rather than manually writing each entry.
-`$RST=*` wipe all of the data in EEPROM that Grbl uses and restores
them to defaults. This includes `$$` settings, `$#` parameters, `$N`
startup lines, and `$i` build info string.
NOTE: This doesn’t write zeros throughout the EEPROM. It only writes
where Grbl looks for data. For a complete wipe, please use the Arduino
IDE’s EEPROM clear example.
- Refactored the restore and wipe functions in settings.c to
accommodate the new commands.
- G91.1 support added. This g-code sets the arc IJK distance mode to
incremental, which is the default already. This simply helps reduce
parsing errors with certain CAM programs that output this command.
- Max step rate checks weren’t being compiled in if the option was
enabled. Fixed now.
- Alarm codes were not displaying correctly when GUI reporting mode was
enabled. Due to unsigned int problem. Changed codes to positive values
since they aren’t shared with other codes.
- Homing cycle failure reports alarm feedback when the homing cycle is
exited via a reset, interrupted by a safety door switch, or does not
find the limit switch.
- Homing cycle bug fix when not finding the limit switch. It would just
idle before, but now will exit with an alarm.
- Licensing update. Corrected licensing according to lawyer
recommendations. Removed references to other Grbl versions.
- Overhauled the state machine and cleaned up its overall operation.
This involved creating a new ‘suspend’ state for what all external
commands, except real-time commands, are ignored. All hold type states
enter this suspend state.
- Removed ‘auto cycle start’ setting from Grbl. This was not used by
users in its intended way and is somewhat redundant, as GUI manage the
cycle start by streaming. It also muddled up how Grbl should interpret
how and when to execute a g-code block. Removing it made everything
much much simpler.
- Fixed a program pause bug when used with other buffer_sync commands.
- New safety door feature for OEMs. Immediately forces a feed hold and
then de-energizes the machine. Resuming is blocked until the door is
closed. When it is, it re-energizes the system and then resumes on the
normal toolpath.
- Safety door input pin is optional and uses the feed hold pin on A1.
Enabled by config.h define.
- Spindle and coolant re-energizing upon a safety door resume has a
programmable delay time to allow for complete spin up to rpm and
turning on the coolant before resuming motion.
- Safety door-style feed holds can be used instead of regular feed hold
(doesn’t de-energize the machine) with a ‘@‘ character. If the safety
door input pin is not enabled, the system can be resumed at any time.
- Re-organized source code files into a ‘grbl’ directory to lessen one
step in compiling Grbl through the Arduino IDE.
- Added an ‘examples’ directory with an upload .INO sketch to further
simplify compiling and uploading Grbl via the Arduino IDE.
- Updated the Makefile with regard to the source code no longer being
in the root directory. All files generated by compiling is placed in a
separate ‘build’ directory to keep things tidy. The makefile should
operate in the same way as it did before.
