Switching EstlCAM between Marlin and Jackpot/GRBL

Software / Firmware EstlCAM
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As some of you are probably aware, I mostly take an “if it ain’t broke, don’t “fix" it” approach to my MPCNC machines. I’ve been using the SKR board with Marlin for several years (Burley, LR2, LR3, LR4, Primo) with no significant issues. So, I’ve not been on the “bleeding edge” of the Jackpot platform evolution by any means.

But, given the amazing performance of the LR4 (especially the dust collection!) I’ve decided to modify my Primo, slightly downsizing it and making it a dedicated carving machine. To do this, I’ve also decided to explore the world of Jackpot, and in fact, I acquired a version 1 board last fall for this purpose. Since the re-build is not yet complete, I’ve not yet completely hooked it up, but have been learning about its functionality, and I did manage to update FluidNC to v3.9.9 (though not the WebUI to v3 yet…)

However, as I’ve studied how it works with EstlCAM, I’ve realized that the Marlin and GRBL details are slightly different. Since I use a separate laptop for essentially all CAD (mostly Onshape, Blender) my work flow is to import the dxf or stl file into EstlCAM, prepare the gcode and transfer to the SKR board, typically using the SD card.

So, I’m gonna need to be able to easily switch EstlCAM between Marlin and Jackpot/GRBL since the LR4 will remain on the SKR board for now.

So, my question is how to do this. A quick test of simply resetting EstlCAM to GRBL caused all my customized Marlin text files to be lost (start, tool change and finish).

How can I avoid this? Is there a way to have two separate instances of EstlCAM? Or, is it possible to save the entire EstlCAM environment (aka “post processor" ?) for each platform and load the version needed for the specific project?

I suspect that this should be possible and hopefully simple, but at the moment have not discovered how to do it.

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I ran into this issue when the Jackpot first came out and I only upgraded one machine. Basically you have 2 choices. Switch estlcam each time you create gcode to the one you need, or swap the other machine out for a jackpot as well. I ended up taking the second option after always forgetting to switch

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Someday, I’ll probably convert the LR4. But not now.

But, in the meantime, what do you mean by “switching EstlCAM”?

Can you have two instances of EstlCAM present on the same machine? Or, is there just an easy way to switch the post processor without losing the other one?

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You can save your post processor settings as a file. Save one for each and change between them when needed. I am not home right now to be able to pull it up and take screen shots of how to do it. If no one else comes along to help I will try to remember and grab them when I get home on the 25th

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Thanks for the hint, Jonathan. I had no idea that this was possible, but I can probably find it, now that I know it exists. (I had assumed that it was saved in individual sections that didn’t seem accessible.)

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You can create “program profiles” in Estlcam so you have 2 desktop Icons that start Estlcam with different settings:

Here are the instructions - it’s German but I think you’ll see how it works:

Basically you copy the Icon and add the word “Profile=” and a self chosen profile name to the application target path.

Christian

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Thanks for the help, Christian. This worked and I now have the two EstlCAM profiles, one for Marlin projects and one for Jackpot projects.

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My preferred method would be ‘Save settings’ as marlin.pp and jackpot.pp and load the appropriate one via ‘Open settings’. I’ve got multiple .pp files and each has a Texts : Program start comment, e.g. (MARLIN), so that I can click Texts to see which is loaded and so that I can see it at the top of a loaded G-code file.

One of my beefs with v12 is that configuration files no longer get saved to dedicated program sub-directories (\Post Processors, \CNC Presets and \Tool Lists). With v12 the default save directory for configuration files is the last opened file directory, typically a project directory and a totally inappropriate location. My workaround is a C:\ProgramData\Estlcam\V12\my_configs Quick Access shortcut.