Loading Grbl on Arduino Mega2560

1. The source code for the Mega lives in this repository at github. You will need to install the
version control system git to check out the code. Select Run Git from the Windows
Command Prompt when downloading. All other options are default.
2. Download latest Arduino IDE from http://arduino.cc/en/main/software (i.e.

Arduino 1.0.4).
(You must add the paths the the executable's like make.exe and
avrdude.exe to windows environment variables. Right click my
computer on the start menu and click Properties. Go to the Advanced
tab and on the bottom there will be a button that says environment
variables. Under system variables there will be a Variable with the
name "Path". Click edit and add the paths to the executable's eg,
C:\arduino-00xx\hardware\tools\avr\bin;
C:\arduino-00xx\hardware\tools\avr\avr\bin;
C:\arduino-00xx\hardware\tools\avr\utils\bin
Do not erase your previous paths just add the new ones. Once this is
done you can compile the source.)
3. Open CMD window by going to Start All Programs Accessories.
Highlight Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.
4. In CMD window, navigate to folder where cloned Grbl will be stored on
local PC and use command git clone
https://github.com/openpnp/grbl.git (no apostrophes) and press Enter.
This is grbl that has been coded for the Mega2560 and OpenPnP
project.
5. Grbl folder will be created automatically. In CMD window type in cd
grbl (no apostrophes) and press Enter to go into grbl folder. Then type
command make clean (no apostrophes) and press Enter.
6. In same folder, use command make grbl.hex (no apostrophes) and
press Enter. Below is how the CMD window looked while loading the
Uno. The Mega2560 is similar. Now you can use XLoader to load the
.hex file to your Arduino.
7. Open XLoader. Select your Arduino's COM port from the drop down
menu on the lower left.
8. Under Device select Mega(ATMEGA2560).
9. Check that Xloader set the correct baud rate for the device: 115200 for
Mega2560.
10.Now use the browse button on the top right of the form to browse to
your grbl.hex file.
11.Once your grbl hex file is selected, click "_Upload_". After clicking
upload, you'll see the RX/TX lights flashing on the Mega2560. The
upload process generally takes about 10 seconds to finish. Once
completed, a message will appear in the bottom left corner of
XLoader telling you how many bytes were uploaded. If there was an
error, it would show instead of the total bytes uploaded.
12.Once loaded, I used a Putty serial window to confirm the load and
move the motors with simple x##y##z## commands. Xloader uses
baud rate of 115200, however, Putty uses the baudrate in Grbl, which
is defaulted to 38400. This is changeable by the user, but involves
recompiling the code.

Note: To recompile Grbl, make changes as necessary in the .c files and

then repeat the make clean and make grbl.hex commands as seen in
Step 5 above.