I used fluidnc a while ago and was pleased with it so when I needed a controller for my cnc I got this. I use it on an old cnc knee mill from the late 80s that I finally got tired of fixing the control on. I'm using the old servos with Gecko servo drives which works well as long as all the terminal connections are done properly. Its all working well, especially for the price, a bit of working bugs out and figuring wifi out but that's to be expected. Next step now that everything works is to clean up the build which will help with reliability as most of the problems I have are with my wiring, the board itself is solid. I was surprised how much more work has gone into fluidnc since last I used it. Previously getting the yaml file figured out was a challenge at first but the online installer now is easy, super nice. I'm very happy with it, the value is hard to beat.

A great upgrade from the all-in-one controller I was using before. The ability to put 48v or more instead of 24v through the motors, the ability to have 4 motors controlling a 3-axis gantry machine plus a rotary axis if I want one, and just the sheer amount of customizability are the huge upsides I was sold on.

It was a bit intimidating since I don't have any background electrical or computer stuff but reading the wiki and browsing help threads on the Discord got me what I needed to switch my cnc over from the XPro V5.

Awesome product.

I decided to switch to FluidNC from grbl, and it's a lot harder to homebrew that. Thankfully, this is purpose-built for FluidNC by the guy who wrote* it. Great software running on great hardware! I like external stepper drivers, so I went this route. As an added bonus, a couple of 5v output ports are built in--you usually have to buy those, and if you are trying to really automate your CNC work, you're going to need them.

It's hard to go wrong with this setup--everything is super-intuitive, and if there is a problem, the hardware is documented within an inch of its life on Github, and FluidNC has an entire, obsessively-complete wiki. And if that's not enough, there is support on Discord. It's not some rando farming responses for stars, or a series of "hey, I had this <exact problem you have>, but now it's fixed" followed by months of silence. It's the guy, whose name you see on this store, answering your questions, asking for info, and then more often than not telling you how to fix it.

On a Saturday, in minutes, in my experience. I almost felt bad about making him work on a weekend, but I figured I'd be lucky if somebody didn't just tell me to put an issue into Github and check my calendar.

In short, buy it and use and enjoy it. It's almost impossible to go wrong.

*I mean, I doubt he wrote it from scratch, but this guy's been leading the way in hobby CNC stuff for ages, so I'm going to pad his resume a bit.

I recently purchased this external driver version of the 6-pack controller (bare, without ESP32 dev board). It arrived quickly and in good condition. I have a fair amount of experience with programming and using the ESP32 devices and others, and with general electronics. Once I found the correct 38-pin version of the ESP-32 dev board (many are not 38-pin), programming with FluidNC was easily accomplished. A look through the example configuration files gave a basic YAML configuration to begin with. After a few tweaks it was simple to upload it via the web interface and set it as default. The literature that Mr. Dring has generated in the various wikis for the software and for the boards is pretty extensive and certainly simplified the task.
Rather than buying the pre-built module(s) for spindle control, I put together a 0-10 volt module and a RS485 module to try each with my Huanyang spindle inverter, following the basic instructions and schematics. Both function fine and can be controlled via FluidNC. I'm sure the pre-built modules would work well too, since they are using much the same circuitry.
I'm still waiting for my external motor driver modules to arrive from the supplier, but I have little doubt that they will work fine with this board.
I have two suggestions for later revisions. First, add a fuse and perhaps a reverse polarity diode (or a bridge rectifier) to the motor power input. Mark the polarity clearly on the top silk-screen print. Currently, the power input connector polarity is unmarked except for the tiny print on the underside of the board, and a mistake would be very easy to make. Second, although the pullup resistors to the 5 volt line and the common ground connection for the six input opto-isolators can make some uses easier, bringing the bare LED connections out instead (or making the grounds and pullups jumper-selectable for each device) would give a lot more flexibility - particularly for interfacing with higher voltage inductive sensors - and would allow for true isolation from the board rather than sharing supplies and grounds across the "isolation".
All in all, this is a really nice flexible board that makes it easier to put together a multi-axis home CNC or laser in a wide variety of configurations. Mr. Dring has made it possibly to copy the entire design - open-sourcing the schematics and even board files, as well as the excellent FluidNC software - but buying a pre-built board allows some support of the project.
Communication would be left un-rated were it possible on this site. The standard of documentation made it unnecessary in this case.

Tried to use this on a 4axis cnc and it was a complete disaster. I am not a PLC expert so I ordered the ESP32 card that was supposed to come with preloaded config file and even went to the trouble of creating a wiring diagram to show all of the components and connections so I could be as close to plug and play as possible. What a waste of time. When the board came the config file was basically the same example file that I could have easily downloaded for free from the FluidNC github and Mr. Dring informed that he didn't set up the config files to that level and directed me to WIKI for configuration and setup. The documentation for the board is extensive but so horribly written that it is almost unusable unless you are a PLC expert or C++ code writer who already knows what all of the variable labels are for with multiple paths to rabbit holes for you to waste your time trying to figure just exactly what they are trying to convey and how it might relate to the config file settings that you are trying to fill in. It took several days but I finally managed to connect all the dots. Then the real trouble started. I am using ST-M5045 drivers that require a common positive and a sunk source for proper operation. After a short discussion about the config file being setup in the opposite fashion and providing the setup diagram from the user's manual, Mr. Dring informed me that it didn't matter because his controller could source or sink the control signals and that I should ignore the provided specs for the drivers because either option would work with his board. Since the controller only came with common grounds at the connection terminals for the driver outputs, I opted to follow his advice since it would make for a cleaner easier installation over trying to source multiple cards from a single connection from the small screw terminal connector. I have to give Mr. Dring credit for responsive, and answering questions in a timely manner, but he tends toward being rude, obnoxious and condescending, making communications unpleasant, leaving the impression that as a customer who needs assistance you are just an inconvenience that he begrudgingly tolerates, and you should stop wasting his valuable time. As I said it took several days to get through the setup and configuration process, but i finally managed to slog my way through and start the test and tune phase of the process. After a few minor bumps in the road like misconfigured switches and homing settings I only needed to invert the direction settings to account for the fact that I am using a fixed gantry with a moving table so the g-code sender could properly apply the commands for proper movement. Aside from needing minor adjustments to tune my steps per mm I thought I was there and even managed to run several of my NC files successfully but started having trouble accessing the web UI after I had changed the direction output to low. It would either take a long time to load or just hang up during startup, so I opened a thread in the help section to try to identify and rectify the problem. I am not an applications engineer, I don't design circuits, I am also not a software engineer, I don't write code, but I am a senior systems engineer who writes systems requirements and assigns system specifications in meeting those requirements followed by integration and testing to ensure proper systems operation and specification compliance and I am very good at it. I quickly honed in on the most likely probable cause being an overcurrent condition and relayed my thoughts to Mr. Dring who promptly dismissed my advice, claiming that the problem was probably due to the noisy drivers I was using and recommended that I review his WIKI on Controller Design Guidelines. It wasn't long after that the ESP32 board died and went to heaven but not before destroying one of my homing switches in the process. I replaced the bad ESP32 with one of my spares and managed to get the board to respond but from that point on it was all downhill. Long story short I spent over a week dealing with Mr. Dring who constantly insisted that the problem must be related to something that I had done and following his bad advice until every channel on the 6 pack was dead. After all of that he finally broke down and actually looked at the schematics I had provided when I asked him how much current the driver boards were drawing and he finally admitted that it was close to the max the outputs could sustain and that was likely an overcurrent situation involved in the failures. Even after all of this I was willing to give it another go and went so far as to order new driver boards so I could get up and running after spending weeks making cables installing the board and slogging through the documentation and replacing damaged components. When I asked Mr. Dring if I could expect a replacement since it was his recommendation to source the driver outputs instead of sinking them according to the driver specs his reply to me was an offer for a refund and the following statement "I don't think this controller is right for you, I suggest you find a different controller and firmware". Well Mr. Dring Maybe everyone should heed your advice. The six pack is a good idea and with a few tweaks might even make a decent controller, and if you are fluent in PLC programming, you might not have any problems, but if you are the average user looking to plug something in and get to work making the things you want and do have problems at least know what to expect as a customer.

Here is a link to our discussions on Discord that I would recommend reading before laying down your money.
https://discord.com/channels/780079161460916227/1136635413587558552

Update...Less than 24 hours after posting this review it appears that Mr. Dring has deleted the above referenced thread from discord. Well done sir...Way to show the world that you are a stand-up guy willing to own his mistakes.... NOT

Rebuttal to Mr. Drings response: I wasn't frustrated Mr. Dring. Integration and testing is what I do for a living and I enjoy the challenge. I think you just refused to ship a new board out of spite for being proven wrong in the end. As for your other comments and claims, I guess it's easy to misrepresent the facts after you have deleted the evidence. Where's that thread? And finally I think your opening statement speaks volumes about this situation....It's not about caring for the customer who has forked over their hard earned cash, it's all about you.

I bought this controller to control my CO2 laser with lighburn. Works like a charm!
The installation was very easy, as the seller helped to create the needed config-file for FluidNC, so everything was pretty much plug-n-play.