The owner of the Reactive Substance web site that makes Grbl shields recommends Arduino Uploader over the standard XLoader. I concur because I was having lockup issues with XLoader. Download Arduino Uploader here:

http://www.ngcoders.com/downloads/ardui … rogrammer/

Also, if you are using the new Uno Arduino (the Omni version), you will need to set the device to m328p and baud rate to 115200. The latter is edited in the small edit window in the app.

I obtained my Arduino chip from Sparkfun and put it into a Duemilanove board and programmed it with Grbl, seems to work ok standalone, haven’t tried it with the shield plugged in because I’m using it for testing. I’m using an Uno board for my actual Shapeoko.

Looks like the Grbl team released a new version 0.8c up from 0.8a. This new version messes up my Grbl Controller because to get the current settings you now have to do a double dollar ($$) instead of a single $. Also, more settings are now available. Working on a fix.

An index of the latest docs for Grbl can be found here:

https://github.com/grbl/grbl/wiki/_pages

Here is the settings page:

https://github.com/grbl/grbl/wiki/Configuring-Grbl-v0.8

I’ve finished rewriting the zapmaker fork of the GrblHoming project on github – lots of code refactoring to fix bugs and harden the code.

Couple of major cool new features: Native Mac support and ability to reset the Arduino from the user interface – don’t need to hit the reset button on the ‘duino any more.

Check out Grbl Controller on github. Download installers for Mac, Windows and Linux.

Grlb Controller featured on the Shapeoko wiki.

Let me know how it goes!