Compare grblHAL to FluidNC

[stevempotter]

FluidNC seems to have many of the same goals as this project. It only runs on ESP32s but has some hardware abstraction for other parts of a CNC system. Is there anyone out there who can mention things grblHAL can do or has, which FluidNC can not or does not?

[terjeio]

"can not" is impossible to say anything about - FluidNC can evolve in ways I am not able to predict.

In not particular order grblHAL:

• has a completely hardware agnostic core in a separate project/repo.
• provides an architecture and a programming evironment that facilitates plugin development.
• has drivers for many microprocessors and boards, also provided by 3rd parties such as the STM32H7xx driver.
• has many "standard" plugin options.
• supports up to 8 axes.
• supports ABC to UVW remapping.
• supports G59.1 - G59.3 coordinate systems.
• supports lathe specific commands: G7, G8, G33, G76 and G96.
• supports many canned cycles: G73, G81, G82, G83, G85, G86 and G89.
• supports cubic splines: G5 and G5.1.
• has ethernet support.
• has native USB virtual serial port support providing high data transfer rates.
• supports a number of tool change modes.
• has fixes for some obscure legacy Grbl "bugs".
• supports WebUI v2 & v3.
• still uses legacy Grbl $$ commands for settings.
• has a Web Builder for some of the supported processors.
• has backlash compensation support.
• supports parameters and expressions, with LinuxCNC extensions. Conditionals are not supported. NIST RS274NGC - see sections 3.3.2.2 - 3.3.2.4.

There may be other features that FluidNC does not have, and it may have some that I have listed above.
Note that some of the features listed requires driver support - driver capability varies quite a bit.

grblHAL does not:

• provide a single(?) configurable binary by uploading a config file to the controller.
• support notification protocols.
• ??

Edit: added backlash compensation & parameter and expression support.