I’m taking a free G-code course from CNC cookbook which uses a free 30 day G-Wizard simulator to test the code.
I was surprised to read that there is more than one “dialect” of G code. It said that most hobbyist use Mach3. I was curious if anyone knew what “dialect” WebControl uses so that I can focus on the proper one. Forgive me if I’m out to lunch. Perhaps some machine companies have added codes, I don’t know exactly what they mean by a dialect.
I would also appreciate any feedback on your experience if you used this software to learn to write, read, and edit G-code yourself.
Thanks
Jerry
Generally the dialect we use is called GRBL, but in general we try to support as many as possible.
Some manufacturers have their own codes which is part of it but the differences between dialects are often things like G01 X10 F100 vs g1 x10.0f100. The differences are mostly in spacing and capitalization and such which just ends up making them a hassle for the computer to parse, but from a human perspective they are quite similar.
The problem is that gcode was created in the 1950s and there isn’t one clear standard.
There are close to 100 variants of G code from one control to another.
Some. G codes are standardized and shared by all variants
While others do something very different from one variant to the other.
M codes also known as miscelanious functions
Are generally machine specific
Again
A hand full of them have been standardized
This is why
It is always important
To read the documentation
That comes with your machine / control combination.
Thanks! Yeah I got to a point where they want me to set up the g-code simulator and you are supposed to enter the dialect your machine uses. And I’m like, well I used to live in Minnesota don’t-ya-know but I’m not sure if that is what they mean, LOL.
Jerry
In the CNC Cookbook course I’m doing it says the following (I’m not sure what a “wag” is so I hope this isn’t derogatory…eeek):
“Some wag once joked that the great thing about standards is there are so many to choose from. So it is from G-Code.”
On a side note, there is a big difference between Mach3 and WebControl
Mach3 will parse and EXECUTE G-code commands. It will use the computer itself to generate the electrical pulses needed to precisely drive the stepper motors.
WebControl, GroundControl and Makeverse are G-code SENDERS, they will not execute g-code commands, instead they will be sent line by line to the control board where they will be finally parsed and computed into PWM pulses to drive the DC motors.
You may want to have a look into the control board’s firmware ( Gcode.cpp ) to see how it works, it will parse and execute the commands listed there and ignore anything else.