I just got this CNC machine. I put it together per instructions (triple checked). I loaded the driver on a Windows Laptop running Windows 11. It shows it is connected on the device manager. I loaded the Candle software and in the status, all it shows is “Port Opened”. No commands are recognized. I removed the USB cable from both the computer and the controller and plugged in the offline controller. It immediately shows an error “no numchuck”. The device will not move at all. The lights on the controller box all are lit and all of the motors have an illuminated green light. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Download Easel and go through the setup. It will allow you to test your axes.
Easel® CNC Software – Page 2 – Inventables, Inc. Easel® CNC Software – Page 2 – Inventables, Inc.
Easel has its own drivers you will need to load. You can select Genmitsu during set up. I would swap cables, make sure the emergency stop is not on as well. It could be a bad controller I suppose. Make sure you have the right baud rate and port too.
Why Easel?
Popular with new users for some reason. Easel’s machine controller has been glitchy for the pushing 10 years I’ve had Sainsmart machines and paid attention, and on my Not Recommended list. It also likes to change Z firmware settings for some machines (it seems to have to do with how they were configured in the first Easel install) on installation and every driver update but that’s another issue. IDK about other machines but Sainsmart ships a 2016 version of Candle and didn’t update on the last couple Candle development cycles including the one this year. Like many CNC router makers SS doesn’t have any of its own software (other than a phone app for their wireless thingy) and relies on free open source and commercial software from others.
Don’t have both Easel and Candle open at the same time, the port can’t be shared between two running programs. On 8 bit controller machines like the V2 you can’t have both the offline controller and USB plugged in at the same time. They share the same communications signal lines and they interfere. Candle, both new and the antique, have a console log. What’s that showing?
There’s a faceplant 
Sainsmart/Genmitsu support group that you should check out, lots of help for Sainsmart product users and for historical reasons 3018s. I have a 4030V2 and use Candle with it and there are multiple similar users in that group. I’m not a Facebook fan, the cat video stream of consciousness with no history (the FP search is basically worthless), but it’s what’s out there for SS support. An attempt to switch to a real forum format failed around 5 years back, sadly. The group has over 40K members and keeps expanding.
So with the help of Genmitsu, the problem was identified and addressed. It was very simple. The fix was to press and turn the “Stop” button. It must have been depressed at some point during the installation. Once that was done, the software recognized everything and I was able to jog the machine on all axis’s.
Simple to use and good setup directions. I like it for converting DXF’s to Gcode. For running my machines, I choose UGS and have been happy with that. For 3D, I have been using Meshcam for over a decade.
Yup, Iv’e bee a UGS user from the first cuts in my router. Ive tried to get my head around linuxCNC and failed (another brick in the wall to beat my head against).
I was going to go to a different controller and haven’t made tat dive yet.. another day maybe.
UGS is a gcode sender, essentially an enhanced terminal emulator that sends ASCII text to a control program that’s burned into a processor on the machine running software called grbl. Grbl interprets the gcode commands and makes the machine move as requested.
LinuxCNC is a complete machine controller, and uses a PC instead of a microcontroller chip, to generate motor signals, turn things on and off, etc. It’s like grbl on steroids, grbl used LinuxCNC’s gcode definition stripped down to fit on a microcontroller from the early 2010s. LinuxCNC can generate motor commands directly (one step in this direction) although it often uses an external hardware device (not even close to grbl) to do a lot of the direct control. To convert a grbl machine to LinuxCNC you’d need to strip off all the electronics including the embedded controller chip. LinuxCNC, without an external hardware assist, will then generate stepper controller pulses using a parallel printer port, that’s how I ran my pre-grbl Zenbot Mini in 2008. The short version is you probably don’t want to do that for a hobby level machine