6 Pack Universal CNC Controller

Name: 6 Pack Universal CNC Controller
SKU: 21156
Price: 48.00 USD
Availability: OutOfStock
Rating: 4.33 (13 reviews)

(13 Reviews)

A Modular, Universal CNC Controller

Designed by Bart Dring in United States of America

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2024-05-06T17:25:07.200Z-20240506_121920.jpg

$48.00

On A Break

Hardware and Electronics for Motion Control and CNC.

A Modular, Universal CNC Controller

New: Version 3.1 has a built in and programmed ESP32 What is it? The 6 Pack Universal CNC Controller is designed to control DIY CNC machines. Rather than hard wiring a bunch of standard features like…

New: Version 3.1 has a built in and programmed ESP32

What is it?

The 6 Pack Universal CNC Controller is designed to control DIY CNC machines. Rather than hard wiring a bunch of standard features like most controllers, this has no dedicated features. It uses standardized modules that allow you to customize it to exactly fit your machine. If your machine changes, you only need to swap out the affected modules.

Spindles are a good example. Many people start with a basic spindle, like a palm router. This might be controlled with a simple relay. In the future you may want to change. We have modules that support PWM with enable and direction, RS485 Modbus for VFDs, 0-10V analog voltage and even BESC (Brushless Electronic Speed Controller) based spindles.

Motor Support

We tried to make the stepper motor support as universal as possible. We start with standard plug in motor driver sockets. These support the simple step/dir modules and Trinamic SPI drivers with support for all modes, including stall detection and super quiet mode. We also have low cost adapters that allow the use of external drivers that connect directly to the terminal blocks.

The controller has 6 motor sockets. You only need to fill as many as you plan to use. The firmware can handle up to six coordinated axes (XYZABC). You can also assign 2 motors to any axis (XXYYZ, XYZZ, XXYYZA, etc).

We already have some standard machines already defined, such as the MPCNC and Lowrider machines.

Note: If you plan on using external drivers. You might like this special version of the 6 Pack.

CNC I/O Modules

The modules are highly optimized for their functions. They mature and develop on their own and new ones are continually being developed. The 4x Input Module is a good example. It is designed to be about as bullet proof to noise and voltage spikes as possible. It has opto isolated inputs with a dedicated isolated power supply. The signal is also filtered and sent through a Schmitt trigger.

There is a well defined spec for these modules. Our modules are all open source. This allows other people to contribute to the available module designs.

Here is a list of the current modules we have. If you need help deciding, please click the contact seller button.

4x Input Module -Tindie -- Documentation
Alternative Input Module - Tindie
Relay Module - Tindie -- Documentation
RS485 Module -Tindie -- Documentation
5V Output Module -Tindie -- Documentation
0-10V Spindle Module - Tindie -- Documentation
Quad MOSFET High Current Module - Tindie -- Documentation
RC Servo/BESC Module -Tindie --Documentation
OLED Display - Tindie- Documentation
Prototype (Breadboard) module Tindie -- Documentation
External stepper driver adapter

Firmware

FluidNC See the Github repo for more details.

Open Source

Everything is open source and on GitHub.

Why did you make it?

People are always upgrading and changing their DIY CNC machines. Your controller should should be able to upgrade and grow with your machine.

What makes it special?

I have been designing CNC controllers for about 15 years. I have probably completed about 40 designs and sold 10's of thousands of units. This controller has been inside my brain the whole time, waiting to come out. I am so excited it is finally here.

No country selected, please select your country to see shipping options.

Change Destination Country:

Bart Dring Shipping Policy:

If you need an International shipping quote, please contact me via the "Contact Store" button on the product pages.

International customer should also look at my partner seller in China.

https://www.elecrow.com/6x-cnc-controller-for-fluidnc.html#customtab

Review Breakdown

Average Ratings

Product: (4.38)

Documentation: (4.15)

Shipping: (4.46)

Communication: (4.31)

Lucas | July 12, 2024

The best-in-class CNC controller on the market.

I don't often leave true reviews but this is a product that easily deserves it.

I bought this product along with Dring's 0-10V spindle controller and two of the 4x input modules to convert my ancient Roland MDX-40 to a more modern firmware. For around $200 total (which includes the spindle hardware and five DRV8825 stepper drivers) I now have a fully capable CNC conversion that handles modern g-code with a wireless interface instead of requiring me to hack together outdated drivers and a machine language from the early 2000s. Originally I tried to use the most budget option for this build in the form of an Arduino CNC hat, but the extra $60 spent is easily worth it. If you're trying to decide between this and other low-cost boards, spend the extra money and go with this.

This product, along with his FluidNC firmware, is extremely well-documented and it took me only a few hours to fully understand the configuration process and get everything up and running on a machine that has never been converted using this hardware before. It interfaces flawlessly with the 500W spindle power supply speed controller and the motion system that came with the machine. The price point is also quite good - this product easily competes with other much more expensive options that I've used, with the added benefit that everything is open source, so I never have to worry about losing support or having to fork over hundreds of dollars for a software update.

Definitely will be continuing to use his products in the future for any other machines I may build.

Peter | Oct. 17, 2023

Hands Down the best Economy DIY CNC Controller available

I have purchased a few products from Bart, ranging from his 4 axis SPI controller to the Six Pack board and Multiple Modules. I have run his GRBL ESP_32 firmware on both boards and have since upgraded to FluidNC . I am in no way an expert in programming languages but have a solid mechanical and electrical systems background. Disclaimer, Bart's products do require more than basic knowledge!!!

All of his products and software are well thought out and are more than capable of controlling most Hobby Machines with precision and have the capability to add external equipment with minimal trouble and programming knowledge.

His communication is excellent and is always willing to help troubleshoot any issues you have. Also 99% of the information required to set up the 6 pack is located here.
https://github.com/bdring/6-Pack_CNC_Controller/wiki
The information for setting up FluidNC is located here.
http://wiki.fluidnc.com/

Make sure to read both Wiki's thoroughly and when you think you understand it read it again. I can tell you almost all of the questions you may have are located with in these 2 pages. Most of the issues I experienced were self induced and the solutions were often just Bart pointing me to the proper page. There is also usually very little waiting time for a response as well. Be sure to check the FluidNC Discord Channel for more specific and detailed issue work throughs and ideas.

https://discord.gg/RsFGCAEF

Remember also Bart and Mitch Bradley have put tons of time into porting GRBL to GRBL ESP32 and FluidNC and have kept it open source for the community. Make sure to support/ donate to them on GITHUB
https://github.com/bdring
https://github.com/MitchBradley

Scott | Aug. 21, 2023

Works as a CNC 6 axis Robot arm controller, too!

It took me some time to get this all figured out. The help on Discord was great, including the seller, Bart Dring. I bit off a pretty big bite, and was trying to configure a 6 axis machine, as my first experience with this controller. Having said that, six axes is a main reason I bought it. The other huge reason, is that Bart is a major contributor to the FluidNC project. I really like FluidNC, so buying this controller is a way of supporting. Might buy another for future projects, and will definitely be ordering some more modules to go with this board.

Olivier | March 23, 2022

Keep up the good work !

I am very pleased with my new controller built around Bart's hardware, I was struggling before with an arduino uno based controller for my rather large home made rack and pinion XYYZ milling CNC, it is night and day !
Also, repos have docs and the seller has a great channel for communication where they are really responsive.

Thank you so much !

Josef | Sept. 29, 2021

I am very satisfied with the products from Bart Dring

I use the product to control my cnc. I have already bought the second one and I am extremely satisfied with it. I use it together with raspberry pi and bcnc.
sorry for english translates google

David | Sept. 7, 2021

not received article

6 Pack Universal CNC Controller to this date i have not received article from you still stuck in usa

Romain | June 26, 2021

Probleme....

Hello,
I send an e-mail but no response...
I received the 6-Pack CNC Controller quickly in France, but the power supply was shorted, I had to unsolder the IC U5 on the board and re-solder an external power supply instead.
After several days of struggling to read the Github dozens of times, I managed to get ESP3D Web UI for Grbl_ESP32 to work and Upload via OTA.
I have another problem, on Motor Socket # 4, Z_STEP_PIN ....... I2SO (13), there is 4.6V going out continuously and can't find why.
Here, I am not happy and I would have liked to have an answer by email.
The product is promising but with the current state of affairs I am not likely to recommend it ....
😞 😞 😞 😞 😞 😞 😞 😞

Deveraux | March 30, 2021

Great product, with much room for future upgrades. Seller co

Seller help me alot with coding, highly recommend.

One thing I would like to have is a pendant for cnc.

Samuel | Jan. 18, 2021

Best controller for unique (or any) CNCs

I have a kind of unique cnc machine and I could not find a controller to do everything I needed until I found this one. It is perfect for mine (or any) machine. It controls my 2x 1y and 2z 48v external drivers with auto squaring, switches between router and laser, auto turns my router and dust collector on, has plenty of inputs for my switches and shutoffs. The esp32 is fantastic, 32bit, it creates a wifi point that you connect your phone, tablet, or laptop to and the webui (control software) starts. It's very easy to use, you can craft macros for frequently used commands, the settings are easy to change, real time overrides and nice jogging interface. It's well made and Bart is a great guy to deal with. I've been recommending this controller to everyone that is researching controllers to use. Thank you!

Steve | Dec. 18, 2020

Perfect replacement for my machine.

I have scratch designed / built a laser plotter / cutter and even went to the trouble to writing my own controller code on a PIC but, like Arduinos, it was too slow. The ESP32 running at 240MHz seemed like the perfect solution as a replacement for my own board.

Like others have also said in comments, communications with Bart have been excellent and he answered a few of my queries before buying the board and helping me choose the right daughter boards to meet my needs. I got him to program an ESP32 with the correct code based on my stepper config. Shipping was great and I got my new board in good time.

Opening up the box, the first and overriding feeling that you get is that this is a board that has been well thought out and done by someone who has done a few of these before. The daughter boards were shipped fitted in the correct slots which made it easy. With excellent connectors on it and clear PCB annotations it seemed pretty clear. I did have to grab a few pin jumpers to set the voltages but fortunately I had a bag of them on hand - but it might have been useful to have had them included for people who do not keep a stock of bits about the place. I had to build the external stepper driver boards but was pleased to see in the documentation a picture of the wiring up to reasonably similar external stepper drivers to the ones I was using. Soldering up the external stepper driver boards was easy and uneventful.

Documentation overall is good but I could not find just a couple of parameters like the maximum motor voltage allowed to power the whole board so I used a buck converter to 12V to power it and it has been fine on that. My motors are running on 28V and I was not sure if that was too much. Its labled as an open hardware project and I am sure it exists, but I have not found the schematic for it. CNC is always complicated but overall there is a lot of documentation and for all that exists it is very clear and unambiguous. Bart also sent a forum link in case I wanted to ask anything else.

I looked at the stepper driver's IO line ICs and found that the maximum allowable current on them for all IO pins is 70mA. My external drivers having 3 lines to run appeared to have about 120R input resistance to their opto isolators on each so I decided to add 100R in series with the stepper IO's to the external driver modules. It has been running fine with that and that works out at 18mA LED drive per opto isolator for a total of 54mA for the driver IC instead of what would have been about double that without the resistors. I dont know if thats required but I thought it safer - depends on your particular external drivers.

Running up the board it provided the required WiFi access point straight away and I could connect to it. I got good motion on the steppers first time and it sounds smooth. I had one axis being driven in the wrong direction but the GRBL settings allow you to invert them with a bit mask. Trying a few times it did not work but when I set AND rebooted it worked great. More of an issue with GRBL than with the board but something to be aware of. I added an SD card and I think that is more required than the documentation says because if I ping the board then it can get a little slow on the ping times when running. But when driving the CNC from SD card programs, it has been flawless - again YMMV as it could be my other WiFi end.

The laser drive PWM has been great and GRBL has a laser mode with dynamic adjustment on the PWM vs head speed and as far as I can tell this supports it. So far all of my cuts have been clean and even so I guess that has been working well.

I opted for an RC servo board too and this has not worked because I can see on my scope that it is running at the default PWM 5KHz instead of 50Hz. The nice thing about buying from Tindie with open source is that I can opt to recompile the code and set this correctly. The RC servo was an optional thing that has yet to be fitted to the machine so it was no bother. Something I can fix up later if I need to.

Overall I have been very pleased and my laser cutter is working just great now. Thanks Bart !

Aaron | Dec. 16, 2020

Amazing Board Quality

This was my first buy from Tindie and I have no regrets at all. I didn't know what to expect but this board has turned out to be way better than I could have hoped.

Bart even answered all my questions personally, which was much appreciated. If Bart comes out with a newer version of this board, I'll buy that one too.

If you're thinking about buying this board, what are you waiting for. Do it already.

Taylor | Nov. 30, 2020

Blown way

Blown away by the quality of this product and the thought behind it. I bought one of my first products from Bart about a year ago for a 2 axis CNC controller and it has been amazing to watch the products, documentation, and support grow. This controller was used to bring a very expensive industrial machine into technology 3 decades newer.

David | Nov. 9, 2020

Great Controller for replacing X-carve controller

I've been looking for a CNC controller for my X-carve and found this project. I had already started using GRBL-Esp32, so it was great to find a board that was tightly integrated with that software. This board is exceptionally flexible and has a number of features that make it very useful. In particular, it supports pluggable daughtercard modules that add extra interface options, as well as a number of different kinds of stepper drivers, including external stepper drivers, which is very useful if your motors are larger than normal and need more current.

I've integrated this controller with my x-carve and successfully cut with it.

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$48.00