Building a Mac OS X version of Candle GRBL controller application with G-Code visualizer written in Qt
As a new owner of a 3018 Pro Milling machine using a GRBL 1.1 controller I needed a program to download G-Code to the CNC Mill.
Windows / Linux users have a few choices including:
While UGS (Universal GCode Platform) does run on Macs, it is Java based and feels a bit resource intensive. So I tried building Candle and it is a fairly easy compile as the developer has done most of the work.
Windows / Linux users have a few choices including:
- Universal GCode Platform (https://winder.github.io/ugs_website/)
- Candle (https://github.com/Denvi/Candle)
While UGS (Universal GCode Platform) does run on Macs, it is Java based and feels a bit resource intensive. So I tried building Candle and it is a fairly easy compile as the developer has done most of the work.
Building
Steps
- Install brew from https://brew.sh
- Install the Qt5 dependency:
brew install qt5
- Determine which version and directory the dependency is located in:
ls /usr/local/Cellar/qt@5
- Download the current version of Candle from https://github.com/Denvi/Candle/archive/refs/heads/master.zip
- Change to the src directory
- Make the Makefiles with CMake:
env Qt5_DIR=/usr/local/Cellar/qt@5/5.15.2 cmake CMakeLists.txt
- Make with make:
make
Why no brew formula?
While I would have liked to write a brew formula to make it easy for others to install Candle, the project fails to meet a number of criteria required. In particular, the version that builds is not a stable released version.
Conclusion
While not included in Brew it still is an easy build and looks like it might be the winning application for running the mill