cncjs

A web-based interface for CNC milling controller running Grbl, Smoothieware, or TinyG. It runs on an Raspberry Pi or a laptop computer that you have Node.js installed, connecting to the Arduino over a serial connection using a USB serial port, a Bluetooth serial module, or a Serial-to-WiFi module like XBee or USR-WIFI232-T.

Features

• Supported CNC controllers
  • Grbl and Grbl-Mega
  • Smoothieware
  • TinyG and g2core
• Desktop App for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows
• 3D Visualizer
• Allows multiple HTTP connections at the same serial port
• Responsive view for small screen display with device width less than 720px
  • Safari on an iPhone 5S [1] [2]
• Customizable workspace
• My Account
• Commands
• Events
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Contour ShuttleXpress
• Multi-Language Support
• Watch Directory
• Z-Probe

Pendant

• cncjs-pendant-boilerplate
• cncjs-pendant-ps3
• cncjs-pendant-tinyweb
• cncjs-pendant-keyboard

Browser Support

Chrome	Edge	Firefox	IE	Opera	Safari
Yes	Yes	Yes	Not supported	Yes	Yes

Supported Node.js Versions

Version	Supported Level
<=0.12	Unsupported
4	Recommended for production use
5	Supported
6	Recommended for production use
7	Supported
8	Unsupported Note: Will be supported in CNCjs 2.0

Getting Started

Node.js Installation

Node.js 4 or higher is recommended. You can install Node Version Manager to manage multiple Node.js versions. If you have git installed, just clone the nvm repo, and check out the latest version:

git clone https://github.com/creationix/nvm.git ~/.nvm
cd ~/.nvm
git checkout `git describe --abbrev=0 --tags`
cd ..
. ~/.nvm/nvm.sh

Add these lines to your ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bashrc, or ~/.profile file to have it automatically sourced upon login:

export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && . "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" # This loads nvm

Once installed, you can select Node.js versions with:

nvm install 4
nvm use 4

If you’re using Node.js 4 or earlier versions, it’s recommended that you upgrade npm to the latest version. To upgrade, run:

npm install npm@latest -g

Installation

Install cncjs as a non-root user, or the serialport module may not install correctly on some platforms like Raspberry Pi.

npm install -g cncjs

If you’re going to use sudo or root to install cncjs, you need to specify the --unsafe-perm option to run npm as the root account.

sudo npm install --unsafe-perm -g cncjs

It’s recommended that you run Raspbian Jessie on the RPi2 or RPi3. For Raspbian Wheezy, be sure to install gcc/g++ 4.8 before npm install.

Check out https://cnc.js.org/docs/installation/ for other installation methods.

Upgrade

Run npm install -g cncjs@latest to install the latest version. To determine the version, use cnc -V.

Usage

Run cnc to start the server, and visit http://yourhostname:8000/ to view the web interface. Pass --help to cnc for more options.

pi@rpi3$ cnc -h

  Usage: cnc [options]
  
  Options:

    -h, --help                          output usage information
    -V, --version                       output the version number
    -p, --port                          set listen port (default: 8000)
    -l, --host                          set listen address or hostname (default: 0.0.0.0)
    -b, --backlog                       set listen backlog (default: 511)
    -c, --config <filename>             set config file (default: ~/.cncrc)
    -v, --verbose                       increase the verbosity level
    -m, --mount [<url>:]<path>          set the mount point for serving static files (default: /static:static)
    -w, --watch-directory <path>        watch a directory for changes
    --access-token-lifetime <lifetime>  access token lifetime in seconds or a time span string (default: 30d)
    --allow-remote-access               allow remote access to the server

  Examples:

    $ cnc -vv
    $ cnc --mount /pendant:/home/pi/tinyweb
    $ cnc --watch-directory /home/pi/watch
    $ cnc --access-token-lifetime 60d  # e.g. 3600, 30m, 12h, 30d
    $ cnc --allow-remote-access

Instead of passing command line options for --watch-directory, --access-token-lifetime, and --allow-remote-access, you can create a ~/.cncrc file that contains the following configuration in JSON format:

{
    "watchDirectory": "/path/to/dir",
    "accessTokenLifetime": "30d",
    "allowRemoteAccess": false
}

To troubleshoot issues, run:

cnc -vvv

Configuration File

The configuration file .cncrc contains settings that are equivalent to the cnc command-line options. The configuration file is stored in user’s home directory. To find out the actual location of the home directory, do the following:

• Linux/Mac

  echo $HOME
  

• Windows

  echo %USERPROFILE%
  

Check out an example configuration file here.

File Format

{
  "watchDirectory": "/path/to/dir",
  "accessTokenLifetime": "30d",
  "allowRemoteAccess": false,
  "state": {
    "checkForUpdates": true
  },
  "commands": [
    {
      "title": "Update (root user)",
      "commands": "sudo npm install -g cncjs@latest --unsafe-perm; pkill -a -f cnc"
    },
    {
      "title": "Update (non-root user)",
      "commands": "npm install -g cncjs@latest; pkill -a -f cnc"
    },
    {
      "title": "Reboot",
      "commands": "sudo /sbin/reboot"
    },
    {
      "title": "Shutdown",
      "commands": "sudo /sbin/shutdown"
    }
  ],
  "events": [],
  "macros": [],
  "users": []
}

Documentation

https://cnc.js.org/docs/

Examples

There are several *.gcode files in the examples directory. You can use the GCode widget to load a GCode file and make a trial run.

If you don’t have a CAM software, try using jscut to create G-Code from *.svg. It’s a simple CAM package that runs in the browser.

Check out a live demo at http://jscut.org/jscut.html.

Contributions

Use GitHub issues for requests.

Pull requests welcome! Learn how to contribute.

Localization

You can help translate resource files in both of app and web directories from English to other languages. Check out Localization guide to learn how to get started. If you are not familiar with GitHub development, you can open an issue or send your translations to cheton@gmail.com.

Locale	Language	Status	Contributors
cs	Čeština (Czech)	✔	Miroslav Zuzelka
de	Deutsch (German)	✔	Thorsten Godau
es	Español (Spanish)
fr	Français (French)	✔	Simon Maillard, CorentinBrulé
it	Italiano (Italian)	✔	vince87
hu	Magyar (Hungarian)	✔	Sipos Péter
pt-br	Português (Brasil)	✔	cmsteinBR
ru	Ру́сский (Russian)	✔	Denis Yusupov
zh-tw	繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)	✔	Cheton Wu
zh-cn	简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)	✔	Mandy Chien, Terry Lee
ja	日本語 (Japanese)	✔	Naoki Okamoto

Donate

If you would like to support this project, you can make a donation using PayPal. Thank you!

License

Licensed under the MIT License.