I know there are a lot of these sort of things about but I thought I would point out this one.

[www.kickstarter.com]

An arduino due with a linux computer built in. Could make an interesting all in one electronics solution.

Yes just spotted this myself. Its basically an arduino with the ability to run linux / android and and a full hdmi screen like a raspberry pi. A reprap with this power, you could just send it your cad file and it could print it directly.

The only thing is they seem to be putting too much in and hence the price might put some people off. It needs to be about £50 all in.

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Helium Frog Website

that looks sweet, now if someone can just make an arduino due compatible firmware, we can rock. this would be amazing, it could have its own screen and become its own print server.

How much does this cost?

... plans are around USD109 for the dual-core version and USD129 quad-core 'officially' ... and USD99 or USD119 for kickstarter-backers ...

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Even though I probably won't buy this soon, there might be a lot of development possibilities in this for later open source 3D printers. Great initiative!

Where does one plug in the stepper motors on this board? To me this looks like just a PC with Arduino, no stepper drivers, no thermistor inputs, no heater outputs --> no substantial advantage over an generic Arduino or even a dedicated RepRap electronics.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

... you'll need a stepper driver shield like RAMPS or adapter to your drivers (like my Isel-CNC-mill interface) ... and it's faster with more numberchrunching-capability -- so better for high-speed (high microstepping settings) and look-ahead

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Quote

it's faster with more numberchrunching-capability

How does that help? The steppers are still served from the Arduino. It has become quiet around the Raspberry Pi. Probably, because the Pi can essentially be used as a beefed up Ethernet-USB converter, only. And I expect this board to be of similar usefulness for RepRap purposes.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Traumflug Wrote:
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> it's faster with more numberchrunching-capability
>
> How does that help? The steppers are still served
> from the Arduino. It has become quiet around the
> Raspberry Pi. Probably, because the Pi can
> essentially be used as a beefed up Ethernet-USB
> converter, only. And I expect this board to be of
> similar usefulness for RepRap purposes.

Its better because you don't necessarily have to send g codes to the arduino and get it to crunch all the data before moving. You could rewrite the firmware so the arduino only has to handle converting raw step commands from the main processor. The main g code routines could be handled using the arm processors.

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Helium Frog Website

... yes, the Arduino should act as pure 'I/O-expander', only handling/driving the shields -- all sophisticated processing should be done on the main cores ...

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

With 2-4 cores A9 cores and a GPU (that supports OpenCL!!!) you could move the slicing process into the printer. All the open slicers run fine (if painfully slow) on Raspberry Pi, and should get a boost on this board.

One other advantage over the Raspberry Pi is that this board has a real LVDS interface that can interface directly with an LCD panel. The Raspberry Pi has a DSI interface that would require some intermediate logic to adapt to common LVDS panels, and apparently is not enabled in the available VideoCore firmware blob.

I have to question why they didn't just pick a fast ARM board with enough GPIO and just expose it, there are plenty of them around, there is a software problem in coming up with some way to do reliable realtime I/O while running an OS with a GPU driver.
But I guess it's supposed to be a linux box with an arduino in onboard.
The more I see people damage the arduino (usually the ADC pins) the more I think more modular is the way to go not less.

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___________________________________________________________________________

My blog [3dprinterhell.blogspot.com]

Traumflug Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> it's faster with more numberchrunching-capability
>
> How does that help? The steppers are still served
> from the Arduino. It has become quiet around the
> Raspberry Pi. Probably, because the Pi can
> essentially be used as a beefed up Ethernet-USB
> converter, only. And I expect this board to be of
> similar usefulness for RepRap purposes.


It's a computer/Arduino package.

Meaning instead of relying on an SDCard for no-PC printing, you could just buy this.

You could remote desktop into it via the Ethernet port, and control your printer from anywhere in the world. (assuming you've plugged this UDOO into your router)

ShadowRam Wrote:
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> You could remote desktop into it via the Ethernet
> port, and control your printer from anywhere in
> the world. (assuming you've plugged this UDOO into
> your router)

Not that you couldn't remote desktop in, but there are other usage paradigms that having an embedded networked computer as a host provides. I've been using OctoPrint solely on both my printers for the last month, and it's been a big change for the better. Since it's a web interface, I can slice and load gcode to the printer from the desktop, then take my tablet across the room and use it as a control panel to prime the extruder and level the bed before I start my printer. The USB webcam support lets me watch my print from my tablet or phone from the other room too. I find this way more convenient than having to copy files to a SD card.

Also, all but the lowest end UDOO model come with a built-in WiFi module, so the only wire that would have to be coming off your printer is the power cable.

But you could do all of that with a single ARM uController running a simple Web server and providing motion control

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/2013 02:44PM by Polygonhell.

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___________________________________________________________________________

My blog [3dprinterhell.blogspot.com]

Polygonhell Wrote:
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> But you could do all of that with a single ARM
> uController running a simple Web server and
> providing motion control

You can. So why hasn't anyone?

i am going in for one of the quad cores, but i gotta say though , i am doing it in the hopes someone can come out with a due compatable firmware, i hope they do i think it will just make out printers that much better.and has a bonus my main pc monitor has hdmi in so i can just pish a button to switch. if i need too.

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]

Quote

You can. So why hasn't anyone?

Even a 100Mhz ARM chip is enough to run a motion control interrupt at ~100KHz and a web server.
Smoothie board ought to be able to do it, but I don't know how complete their software stack is.
It probably hasn't been done because of the prevalence of arduino's for rep-rap control electronics. They've been good enough that people haven't looked at alternatives, since they would require either proprietary boards or someone to do a small run of a custom board.

It is something I've been looking at, but I'm writing the software stack from scratch, partly to address some things I don't like in the existing reprap firmwares, partly as a platform to hack on for my own projects and partly to better understand the requirements.
The 100MHz arm board I'm using to prototype is $40 in quantities of 1 including a 2.8inch 320x240 touchscreen, the Motordriver etc would be done through an expansion board similar to RAMPS, though I'm starting to think that multiple daughter boards are preferable.

I also have a 400MHz arm board I'll play with when I have something working, it has a 3.2 inch touchscreen for ~$70 for the basic board, and lot more functionality than a RepRap needs.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/2013 03:18PM by Polygonhell.

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___________________________________________________________________________

My blog [3dprinterhell.blogspot.com]

Functionally, the UDOO doesn't do anything that can't already be done with any Linux box and an Arduino. In terms of price, it is a faster Linux box than other boards for a similar price (Beagle Bone, Olinuxino). The convenience of the package is unique though.

For me, it is really tedious trying to get Linux to do real time I/O, and really tedious getting bare metal CPU to do all the high-level OS stuff that Linux already does. So it makes complete sense to have a "Big-Little" architecture, with each CPU doing what they are best at, and having one physical package just makes it easier to integrate into a system. The two CPUs of UDOO are actually quite loosely coupled, so any code developed for it can be easily moved to separate boards, and vice versa, any code that runs on Linux or Due will be easily ported onto UDOO.

I've signed up for quad core, hopefully by the time it ships we will have one or more Due compatible RAMPS type boards, and Due firmware. I am actively pursuing both, albeit quite slowly

though i do wonder if i am about the only person who thinks isolating the boards would not be a bad idea, spening that much on a mainboard would kinda suck to have it or both taken out

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]

Quote

Its better because you don't necessarily have to send g codes to the arduino and get it to crunch all the data before moving.

This has been considered many times and so far the result of these considerations was always to do the movement caclulations in the controller, even if this slows the controller down considerably.

Good old FiveD firmware was the closest to this paradigm, it asked the PC to do the acceleration and path joining calculations. As we all know, FiveD is history.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

That board has like tens of processors and none of that could be arsed to get some pins directly to run something like emc2, real time that is.

So an arduino has to provide gpio?

I find it hilarious.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/2013 06:06PM by NoobMan.

its kinda funny how i see things, i dont have any formal training in electronics, but i do see the value in doing somethings other ways, one of my engineer friends like to point out to me i find and like the strangest and oddest things, but thats not always a bad things, i have found a few ways to do some interesting things

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[mike-mack.blogspot.com]

All in all, I do sort of like that board too, and atm i think is a value certainly worth its money.

But freescale imx6 is a processor in a bga with 624 pinout. From these 624 pins, it has gpio more than i care to count, and it has more ground pins that arduino has gpio. On top of a processor like that, slapping a serial connection to an arduino board to get some i/o, has to feel at least a bit ironic. Thats what i meant.

Cant say arduino is there to provide processing power, so it has to be gpio, but imx has a ton more of those too. Perhaps its to protect imx pins from abuse, arduino presumably could take more of a beating. But at least if there is no header with like at least 20 gpio directly from imx, i would be really disappointed - i think would be a real pity to loose the stuff it could of done otherwise, real time stuff, or expand upon rPi foundations.

NoobMan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> But freescale imx6 is a processor in a bga with
> 624 pinout. From these 624 pins, it has gpio more
> than i care to count, and it has more ground pins
> that arduino has gpio. On top of a processor like
> that, slapping a serial connection to an arduino
> board to get some i/o, has to feel at least a bit
> ironic. Thats what i meant.

The Kickstarter update with the interconnect details show that the SAM3's USB device port is MUXed between a USB host port on the imx6 and an external connector. USB HS should be enough for pushing gcode.

A forum post on the Kickstarter mentions that some exposed GPIOs are shared between the two processors somehow, for better or worse.

Indeed. I found this: "Pins from 22 to 53 (referring to Arduino DUE pinout) are shared between the two CPUs."

Those are potentially priceless pins. It would of been a crime not to have some of that. Yummmmy..

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2013 02:51PM by NoobMan.