Replace Your CNC Pendant with Your Smartphone

The entire point of a CNC machine is that it works automatically — you don’t have to sit there cranking the axes manually to make a part. But job setup generally does require manual control as you probe for the part origin, set tool offsets, and so on. That’s where a CNC pendant comes in handy, but those can be surprisingly expensive and still functionally limited. So, Francis Bossé created the AxisForge app that lets a smartphone act as a CNC pendant.

If your CNC machine already has a pendant, then this won’t be much use to you. It is for people who currently do all of their jogging via a control computer or controls located inconveniently on the machine somewhere. It is particularly useful for DIY builds.

The operation is simple: you just connect the proprietary USB dongle to your control computer, open the smartphone app (compatible with iPhone and Android), connect the two via Bluetooth, select your control system, and start working. The app gives you big, customizable buttons for jogging and macros. You can do everything you would normally do with a CNC pendant, plus more thanks to the buttons that you can tailor to your needs.

By default, AxisForge has eight built-in profiles that work with Mach3, LightBurn, generic GRBL controllers, Carbide Motion, UGS Mac, UGS Windows, and OpenBuilds. If yours isn’t on the list, you can create a custom layout. The dongle is really just passing keyboard commands to the control software, so drivers aren’t necessary and you should be able to work with virtually any system that accepts keyboard input.

The AxisForge app is free, but you need a dongle to use it. There are two versions: Standard and Pro. Both are available in either USB-C or USB-A. The only difference between the two is range. The Pro has better BLE 5.0 range at 80-90 feet, compared to 10-16 feet for the Standard dongle. They cost CA$49.99 and CA$79.99, respectively.

CNC pendants can get very expensive, so AxisForge could be the perfect alternative for those working on a budget.