So you just finished your DIY CNC machine, set up GRBL and even cut your first part. Now what? Well, did you know that as of GRBL v0.8 there are pinouts some really useful commands such as Cycle Start, Feed Hold and a Soft Reset? Cycle Start and Feed Hold allow you to literally pause your machine so you can double check that your tool isn't about to hit a clamp, or maybe you just need to run inside to grab some more pizza. Once you get back, just hit the Cycle Start button and BAM! your machine goes on its merry way as if nothing had ever happened....
Although these commands are accessible via the terminal, I decided that I really wanted to have a nice pendant with easy to use buttons - and maybe a few extra buttons for future development! So grab your soldering iron and lets get to work! There are a few components that we need to complete this project, I set up a handy-dandy wishlist over at Sparkfun with *most* of the parts, the rest you will have to source yourself.
What You Need:
- Soldering Iron/Supplies
- 10 wire Ribbon Cable
- (2) serial port connectors (one male, one female)
- serial cable
- (3) arcade machine buttons. I like Green, Yellow and Blue
- (2) switches
- Mushroom style E-Stop button (Mine came from ZenToolworks.com)
- Screw terminal block (I don't recommend the white, "European Style" blocks because they don't work well with small wires)
- Aluminum Enclosure
- Drill press with Step Drill (Amazon has step drills for $cheap$)