How to Control Stepper Motors with Arduino using a GRBL CNC Shield!

Stepper motors are precise and powerful tools used in every type of precision cutting and manufacturing including CNC machines, mills, lathes, printers, laser cutters and more!

The Arduino microcontroller is capable of integrating with a CNC shield to control several stepper motors required for a 3-axis gantry found in CNC and 3D printing applications. We need the GRBL library installed on the Arduino and we use the Universal G-Code Sender IDE to actually control the stepper positions!

Check out my personal channel for more fun science content!

The CNC Shield Kit I purchased from amazon can be found here:
The Arduino IDE can be downloaded here:
The GRBL GitHub link is here:
The universal G-Code sender is here:
And if you want to become a super supporter of the channel check out the link here!

Thanks for watching, don't forget to leave a like, subscribe to the channel and comment what you want to see more of!

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction and hardware required for Arduino CNC system
01:05 Assembling the Arduino CNC shield circuit components
02:56 Installing software, setting up for GRBL and universal G-code sender
06:19 Testing the stepper motors using GRBL and universal G-code
07:40 Thank you and future plans

[simonbroodjekaas]

Best tutorial I've seen in years. Just easy to follow and extremely helpful. Keep it up!

[swradios]

Wow, absolutely the best "How to" video on Youtube! I just ordered a 3 motor kit and got it all running while viewing your instructions, pause, do it, pause do it. IDE had a problem finding the GRBL folder under Documents/Arduino/libraries. The folder was there but it didn't show under files/examples/... Somehow it finally did, not sure why. I'm impressed with your work!!

[DavioCuro]

For the first time; a video that explains this process perfectly! Thank you!!!

[tomcarroll]

Been trying to piece this picture together for a while. You gave the whole process in one short video. Thanks.

[st_track_dents]

I love tinkering around with Arduino but have always found working with steppers confusing, this looks like a really good system and you have explained the set up process in a very easy to understand way, can't wait to give it a try! Great video 👍👍👍

[tipitina]

Really good video for the prototyping, I've watched just about every video relating to the CNC shield at this point. Thank you :)

[saminarafique]

Thanks a lot. I wasted a lot of time searching for appropriate grbl, but none of them worked. At last this video made it possible only in 10 min effort.

[VIJAYzk]

i am building a CNC and was seaching for electronic assembly.
the quality of this video is so good that i subbed it halfway through.
keep up this good work! thank you.

[reaper]

Great video man. I love this stuff. I have everything to build my DIY CNC ROUTER now. I wasn't really sure what I was missing. I have GRBL, UGS? and Arduino IDE all on my computer. now I need to lock them all in together.
This is always where I get messed up bcos I've never worked around computers until recently. LOL
U made these steps so easily understandable my friend so big thank you for that. This is actually the 1st proper video in set up I have found. Maybe I just didn't find this before but I thought I had watched this one a while back but couldn't fiund it again.
Thanks very much man.. Salute from Dublin..

[ltcameron]

Exceptinally easy to follow. Absolutely brilliant. Thank you.

[junglemike]

Thanks mate. That was very helpful and informative.

[alzanaty]

Well done my friend, I was honored and benefited a lot from this beautiful explanation. I am a new follower from Egypt

[k-crxy]

Amazing. I just, simply followed your vedio step by step, working fine as it is.👌👌.I am in the process of development of CNC machine. As first step to my project..it really worked on one go. Thanks a lot 🙏

[beautesmecaniques]

Thank you for the detailed explanation, saved our project!!

[stefanofurlan]

Clear, simple and straight to the goal

[codinghighlightswithsadra]

so cool!
thanks for all the great content!

[JM_Tushe]

Pretty straightforward, thank you. 🙏





😘

[Bobby.]

Great video i plan to build some smaller DIY cnc and i can't find anywere all the information i need, like what stepper motor goes with which driver board and stuff like that but your videos are very useful keep up 👍👍👍

[Chetanganji]

bang !!! clear crisp on point !!!kudos n thanku :)

[kiranshashiny]

Great video, I am not using GRBL as I have to use the motors for a different purpose. I have the CNC shield plugged into the Arduino.

From the CNC shield pin out, Pins D2 and D5 of the Arduino are used for controlling the step and Dir of X axis.
D3 and D6 for Y axis/motor and so on.

But I want to micro step the motors, What pins on the Arduino should be programmed for doing this.

Code for controlling the basic step and dir of "X" is shown, but here I want to control the Microstepping of the 'X' motor. **How do I do that** ?

const int stepX = 2;

const int dirX = 5;
const int enPin = 8;
void setup() {

// Sets the two pins as Outputs

pinMode(stepX, OUTPUT);

pinMode(dirX, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(enPin, LOW);

digitalWrite(dirX, HIGH);

}

void loop () {

for(int x = 0; x < 200; x++) {

digitalWrite(stepX, HIGH);

delayMicroseconds(10000);

digitalWrite(stepX, LOW);

delayMicroseconds(10000);

}
}