Saw this on Aliexpress, my understanding was that MKS was an arduino/ramps integrated board.

[www.aliexpress.com]

This one is 32bit Arm based. Has anyone any experience with this board? What firmware's can be run on it?

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

smoothieware - U can find information @ smoothieware.org..

It's a MKS SBASE: [forums.reprap.org]

I have one but have not mounted it up yet for use. Ive powered it up along with the LCD screen they sell though to update firmware and they seem to be ok. They do have some contention in the community though since they are not open source. Smoothieware will also not support users of the board too so your only support options are other users and the makers(who are quite unresponsive).

to be honest if is just the regular setting up things up good idea read through smoothieware and use their smoothie edge firmware than the mks version on their GitHub, if you need support for the hardware then yes only the manufacturer can help there, but there are a few users on here help if you get stuck

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Check my rubbish blog for my prusa i3

up and running
[3dimetech.blogspot.co.uk]

Thanks for the info.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

Quote
GearheadRed
Smoothieware will also not support users of the board too so your only support options are other users and the makers(who are quite unresponsive).

The general policy is :
* We don't like MKS
* If you have a problem with a MKS board, please contact them *first*
* If they don't answer you, some of us are likely to help you then, but we won't be happy about it

Quote
arthurwolf

Quote
GearheadRed
Smoothieware will also not support users of the board too so your only support options are other users and the makers(who are quite unresponsive).

The general policy is :
* We don't like MKS
* If you have a problem with a MKS board, please contact them *first*
* If they don't answer you, some of us are likely to help you then, but we won't be happy about it

what about help with the firmware? then obviously the hardware side of things is mks problem

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Check my rubbish blog for my prusa i3

up and running
[3dimetech.blogspot.co.uk]

where are the sub £50 smoothie boards? am struggling to comprehend the expense of £120 boards "not just smoothie offering" in fact it's frightening, am huge fan of advancing 3DP to 32bit processing, but pricing gonna leave folks behind more so now with the hardships of our economic times.

lot of respect arthur,

Quote

The general policy is :
* We don't like MKS
* If you have a problem with a MKS board, please contact them *first*
* If they don't answer you, some of us are likely to help you then, but we won't be happy about it

I dont like it as a statement " just feels" it pitches others against others without educating the new comers. Now as I understand it following other threads, mks is actively taking from the opensource without giving back with poorly conceived notion of support for there own hardware. am wondering if there a public statement which expands on those three points. "firstly just to point folks too, should they ever ask why there not getting a warm welcome, secondly to openly inform mks to up their game.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2016 05:06AM by jinx.

What about ReArm? [www.kickstarter.com]

Seems like a good compromise, 32 bit, ethernet port, can run Smoothie.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2016 07:27AM by DjDemonD.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

ReArm soon adds up for the extra's RAMPS + driver, lcd controller nice idea promise for it outside the 3DP world, but I sooner opt for a single smoothie board when you compare costs, and almost heart breaking to see an updated base without an improved RAMPS 1.5 !. never want to see analogue pots on a driver again either

Yes but aren't these the innovations and nice little touches the things which add to the cost? Ramps isn't great but it basically works with a few mods and checks, and its cheap as the clones are often usable.

I've got a duet wifi on one machine and it is good. But I recently built a new machine and used a ramps/mega and it wasn't that much trouble and it cost $20 not $200. Manual pots are a source of a lot of trouble especially when you start out 3D printing, but this time round I set them and moved on - 3 minutes work at most. Probably would have taken as long to load the config file enter the new values and reboot the newer 32 bit controller.

If 32 bit controllers were $50-60 we'd all be using them - that's why MKS-Sbase exists isn't it?

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

I be tempted to use a RAMPS 1.3 for re-arm, spend an afternoon soldering then you get control over the few components like the which fets to use, throw out the poly fuse for those car fuses etc, just no way in cold hell i spend cash on rearm then shove a $6 Red "cursed" ramps on it.
the down side you spend a little more an loose the RAMPS adapter for the controller.