Intel Edison Board

Has anyone looked into using the Intel Edison SoC and breakout board for 3D printing? Only problem I can see is the lack of sufficient PWMs [only 4] for those that use many. Apparently can be used just like Arduino Uno R3.
Sparkfun has a stack board that can drive 8 servoes with PWM, so I guess its stock limit wouldn't matter anyways?
It's not cheap, but it's relatively powerful, and runs 32-bit.

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Realizer- One who realizes dreams by making them a reality either by possibility or by completion. Also creating or renewing hopes of dreams.
"keep in mind, even the best printer can not print with the best filament if the user is the problem." -Ohmarinus

not enough GPIO for 3d printing. could be used as a host to connect to a microcontroller board though

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isonoob
could be used as a host to connect to a microcontroller board though

An expensive, overkill host. $50 just for the brains and another $20+ for whatever additional blocks you'll need.

agreed, however, it has potential being that it is dual core and runs a 32bit processor. Could run slicing software on it, but it will probably be realyl slow.

SPI/I2C to GPIO/ADC/PWM chips are really cheap, don't know why not use edison... arduino due and mega cost the same as intel soc and provide a lot of less computing and communication power than the edison.

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cvaldess
SPI/I2C to GPIO/ADC/PWM chips are really cheap, don't know why not use edison... arduino due and mega cost the same as intel soc and provide a lot of less computing and communication power than the edison.

Beaglebone has more I/O available than Edison or any of the Arduinos, and two PRU coprocessors with DMA to the ARM's memory and GPIO access. It's ideal for 3D printing, and there are capes that take advantage of this. Unfortunately they're all pricey.

Edison has a 100MHz Quark coprocessor that Intel has promised documentation and tools for, but so far these are vaporware. Without some sort of real-time coprocessor (PRU on BB, ARM or AVR with separate controller) your motion control won't be precise enough. Besides, by the time you throw down dedicated serial bus interface chips you might as well spend the $4 for a STM32 or Kinetis with USB and plenty of I/O.

The current smoothieboard has quite a good following and is pretty feature-complete.

They recently posted a picture of a proposed version 2.0: [plus.google.com]

Its pretty ridiculous. Intel edison, cortex M4 and an LX9 FPGA. It also has 7 stepper drivers and sensorless stall detection. I'm not even sure the word ridiculous is capable of conveying the sheer overkill in that board.

However, I did see a robot arm that can paint a painting, controller by this board.

But price-wise, my money is still on Arduino + Ramps. Cheaper, more flexible and finally, more used so bigger userbase.

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Ohmarinus
However, I did see a robot arm that can paint a painting, controller by this board.

But price-wise, my money is still on Arduino + Ramps. Cheaper, more flexible and finally, more used so bigger userbase.

The only merit of Arduino/RAMPS is that it is cheap. It has a number of disadvantages compared to more modern boards such as the Duet, the RADDS and the Smoothie-compatible boards. In particular, it has no software control of stepper motors currents, so you have to fiddle with pots and voltmeters. Users frequently get this wrong and occasionally short out the drivers in the process. The 5V regulator on the Arduino Mega is fragile and Arduino/RAMPS users frequently blow it. If you connect an LCD to the RAMPS (especially a graphics one), the regulator gets very hot. The 8-bit atmega2560 has limited processing power can can barely run a delta printer. It has a slow serial-over-USB connection to the host with no flow control.

Arduino Mega/RAMPS has served the community well, but it's time it was retired in favour of more modern, more functional boards with faster processors. Both my 3D printers use the Duet. For those on a budget, the AZSMZ Mini is worth a good look.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2015 05:42AM by dc42.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].