I’ve just started playing with chilipeppr/grbl. I like it. And I hope to transition fully to it when I get more comfortable. I am missing the nice work space / work coordinate icons available in the tiny g workspace though. It’s a bit hard to keep track of work spaces and manage them with no visual feedback. Is it possible to make this look and behave similar to in the tiny g verion? I also wish that the Eagle widget in grbl could do pre drilling/marking. Thanks:)
@Martin_Skog one reason is that Grbl is a low-end CNC controller so it doesn’t push back any work coordinate system change information to the client (CP) when they change. Thus the widget wouldn’t work. TinyG does send that info back when there is a WCS change so CP can pivot off that data.
However, you could possibly poll that data on interval, which is not even close to ideal because many other interval polling items are already in play to try to get Grbl to give quasi-real-time data back like position, but it could be done if perhaps you query every 5 seconds to not overwhelm the device.
Then, next step would be for you to for the Axes widget in Grbl and just drop in the WCS widget but add code in your fork to handle the polling interval.
As for the Eagle widget, it does do pre drilling marking. Is it just that maybe you didn’t notice? Or do you need it to do something beyond the existing pre-drilling that it does?
Hi John:) From your reply I get the impression that the widget does a lot more then I thought it did. The GRBL work space does display the WCS under the GRBL widget(?). So all I wanted was for that info to be larger and more visible. So that I know what I am working with. And also being able to press buttons to change WCS would be a lot more convenient then remembering and typing the commands. I am trying to get a workflow going since I installed limit/homing switches. I want to be able to recover from crashes etc, and have a repeatable start position.But I haven’t quite figured it out yet. I mess up a lot 
About the Eagle widget: I saw Frank Herrmanns videos on YT and wanted to try it myself. I haven’t yet, so I might be asking dumb questions. But I do not see the “mark holes for drilling” option on the GRBL one.
Now that I have played a little more with it, the GRBL eagle import does not make the drilling tool paths at all for me. But it seems to work fine in the tinyG one.
Try the xpix workspace
That one also behaves as expected. And seems to generate a valid job with holes and all. But this is a tinyg workspace too right? So I guess it wont work with grbl.
I’ve spent many hours now trying to get this to work. And I’m a little frustrated. Xpix is only for tinyG, or at least I cant get it to change to grbl. Even though a tutorial at inventables mention you have to use this workspace because the grbl one does not do drilling. And I’ve seen videos where Frank Herrmann uses it with grbl, so it must be possible.
I was able to generate g code in the xpix space though and that was still loaded when I entered the grbl space. But in grbl space the autoleveler did not work either. So I found a third space “imania” where this function worked. But at this point it was getting a bit silly with all the swapping here and there, and in the end I don’t think it worked. I managed the first trace or so with good results before my last end mill broke.
I think if you use the autoleveler from imania and the eagle stuff from xpix in the grbl space it should be alright. But right now I don’t think it’s usable for me :\ It looked sooo easy and nice on the demo Frank Herrmann made on youtube though, so I hope It will work in the future.
@Martin_Skog would you be interested in taking over administration of the grbl workspace? I do think that with how many developers now contribute to ChiliPeppr that we get solutions to problems super fast, but they get scattered across multiple workspaces. Grbl workspace tends to get updates last then. I’m a TinyG guy so I focus on that workspace, but it would be great to get somebody to be lead guy on the Grbl workspace to solve exactly the frustration you’ve had.
I think that would leave the grbl space in less capable hands for sure haha!
I don’t know programming at all and I’m no cnc guru either. I will look at your videos on how to fork (copy?) work spaces though. If I think I can do it, I will give it a go. I don’t dare to mess with something other people more capable then me are using today.
I am really liking the idea of chilipeppr. And I can see all the hard work put into it, and all the potential it has. I think it’s much more modern and nice then mach3/linux cnc also. Sadly my grbl solution is starting to show it’s limitations. I am tempted to buying a tinyG myself just because you are supporting that development.
Indeed, TinyG gets major support at ChiliPeppr. I love the Synthetos guys and if you’re going to really get into CNC then it makes sense to spend $130 on a good controller since it is the heart of your $1000 machine.