New here from Belgium and general question about Blackbox Motion controller

Hello,

I'm new here, I'm already looking to buy a CNC-router for a long time. First I didn't have the money to spend and no place to work. No I have the money, not the necessary space, but I will manage.

I already checked a lot of CNC-routers: X-carve, shapeoko, stepcraft, aureus, onefinity and a lot of others. Unbelievable how much producers there exist of cnc-routers.
Except for the onefinity, all others couldn't seduce me. But the onfinity would cost me a lot of money due to shipping and custom duties.
Also the stepcraft was a option with it's freestyle milling, but it seems the stepcraft community is small.

So Yesterday I discovered openbuilds due to a french site, makerstore, that sells the parts.
The openbuilds lead-cnc fits me best as it has all the things I hope it has: sturdy build, open source, linux support, and a decent community.
Now I have this question, the controller they sell seems the same as the one from x-carve and cost around 300€. Now I was wondering if it was worth to pay the shipping and custom duties for the Blackbox motion controller and the Interface. All together It probably will cost me approx the double of rgbl controller the french site sells. Or it should be that I can buy the blackbox and interface in the EU.
Here is the link to the rgbl controller from makerstore: GRBL CNC controller – Makerstore

 

Thanks, I compared both and on first sight they have the same features, also the openbuilds interface should work as it is works with a serial connection which is also available on the makerstore version. So I can still buy the interface in a later stage.

 

It seems it's a x-carve clone with serial added, they have also a kind of "interface" where it says:

"This is actually an extension that belongs to a third party machine, but can be used with some “hacking” with any GRBL-based controller, by attaching the RX line of the screen with the internal TX line of the controller, the TX line of the screen with the internal RX line of the controller, and the screen’s 5V and the GND of the controller. Our GRLB CNC controller (x controller clone) has breakout contact to make this easy. Other controllers (i.e. original x controller or other GRBL based controllers) may require to locate the RX, TX, 5V and GND contacts to solder or attach the lines to."

There are some pictures on the site where they show where the serial connection is: Offline LCD screen and micro SD card reader for GRBL CNC controller (X controller, etc) – Makerstore

Also their controller seems to use a arduino nano, instead of a soldered Atmega 328p.

 

OK thanks, I will do that.

 

Hello Peter,

Yes I also found this supplier and wanted to order the killerbee, but the leading times where to long, so some parts, I ordered with them, the other parts I ordered on the makerstore. Seems the owner of the makerstore is from flanders, so I could communicate in dutch.