Communicating with the CNC

Connect to the Arduino UNO

First you need to find which USB port your arduino is connected to.

To do so, you can use dmesg:

1. make sure the usb cable from the arduino is unplugged
2. run dmesg -w in a terminal
3. connect the usb and see something like:

[70480.940181] usb 1-2: new full-speed USB device number 31 using xhci_hcd
[70481.090857] usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=2a03, idProduct=0043, bcdDevice= 0.01
[70481.090862] usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=220
[70481.090865] usb 1-2: Product: Arduino Uno
[70481.090868] usb 1-2: Manufacturer: Arduino Srl            
[70481.090871] usb 1-2: SerialNumber: 554313131383512001F0
[70481.093408] cdc_acm 1-2:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device

Important

The important info here is ttyACM0!

Then you can use picocom to connect to the arduino:

picocom /dev/ttyACM0 -b 115200

Note

-b 115200 is the baud rate of the connection, read the picocom man page for more info.

Once connected you should see something like:

picocom v2.2

port is        : /dev/ttyACM0
flowcontrol    : none
baudrate is    : 115200
parity is      : none
databits are   : 8
stopbits are   : 1
escape is      : C-a
local echo is  : no
noinit is      : no
noreset is     : no
nolock is      : no
send_cmd is    : sz -vv
receive_cmd is : rz -vv -E
imap is        : 
omap is        : 
emap is        : crcrlf,delbs,

Type [C-a] [C-h] to see available commands

Terminal ready

Grbl 1.1f ['$' for help]
[MSG:'$H'|'$X' to unlock]

This mean you now have access to a Grbl terminal (Grbl 1.1f) to communicate, notably send instructions, to the CNC!

Troubleshooting

Serial access denied

Look here if you can not communicate with the scanner using usb.