Control board decision - DuetWifi or Smoothieboard...??

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cwaa
My only experience is with a smoothie board and smoothie ware. What has Duet got that I don't already have? I don't want to have to learn marlin so what am I giving up? I connect to my printer over my lan, I can upload files to the SD card from anywhere on my network. I use ponterface for my network interface.

You've already got a good 32-bit board, so I'm not trying to persuade you to switch. But in answer you your question, the Duet offers these advantages:

- TMC2660 drivers with up to x256 microstepping, microstep interpolation, stall detection, up to 2.4A motor current, no cooling normally needed at currents up to 2.0A.
- Much faster file upload to the SD card over the network. 800kbytes/sec is typical, less than 13 seconds for a 10Mbyte file.
- A comprehensive web interface providing a lot more information and control that you get with Pronterface.
- Expandability up to 12 stepper drivers, 9 fans, 8 heaters.

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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].

I've used both and would have to say that file upload + ease of starting a print is the most important question.

I've never had to wait more than a minute to upload via ethernet to the duet.
However I've never found a fast way to upload to the smoothieboard. I would often have to wait 20-30 minutes to upload via usb or ethernet & the external sd card isnt really stable. The fastest way to upload is to pull out the firmware sd card and upload a new file. But to only have fast upload while the printer is off is just... terrible.


That said, marlin 2 is pretty darn awesome and seems to get rid of the issues I was having with smoothieboard + external sd. So if you want to use smoothie hardware then I highly suggest getting marlin 2 when they finish development. Marlin seems to be more pro experimental features than RRF or smoothie. (Probably has a larger dev team) Though I think RRF is a close second.


I also have never felt like I was pushing the duet harder than it could take. I've run my duet delta at ungodly print speeds with 400 plus steps per mm and never been slowed.
Smoothie has been less efficient with the software's use of the hardware. I had major issues with high steps per mm in early designs I made & had to do some really annoying stuff to make the smoothie delta calibration not freeze up. It feels like every time I add a feature, I have to take one away for the smoothieboard.


My conclusion would be to use a duet and I wish it weren't true cause its pricey. But it just works really well. And if you pick any other board, you'll end up spending the same amount of money to get the same performance & still wont have the awesome features of the web interface. Printing use to be a process. And now it's a button push.

I already have a smoothie board on my cartesian printer. I am buying another controller for a delta build I am assembling now. How much hassle is it to learn Marlin? I will have a very small learning curve with smoothie and I like the current product.

The Duet doesn't run Marlin, it runs RepRapFirmware. A single firmware binary handles all configurations, so you never need to recompile the firmware - unless of course you are a software developer and you want to. Firmware configuration is done using a text file on the SD card, but all the configuration commands are GCodes - so completely different from Smoothieware's text config file.

Therefore, the main learning curve for you if you buy a Duet will be how to configure the firmware. There is a web-based configuration tool at [reprapfirmware.org] to help you generate the configuration and homing files.

For delta printers, segmentation-free delta motion and least-squares auto calibration of up to 9 delta printer factors is built into the firmware.

HTH David

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/07/2018 11:44AM 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].

I just ordered the Duet ethernet board. I was leaning toward the Smoothie and when I tried to order it, it was out of stock everywhere but Europe. So I will try Duet.

nice choise . you wont regret this . this is top board..!

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Delta Printer
Duet 0.8.5 firmware 1.19

I received my Duet Network control and after two days I still can't get it connected to my network. I have asked for a RMA to send it back. I will go back to Smoothie.

I'm sorry to hear that. Did you ask for help on the support forum at [forum.duet3d.com] ?

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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].

Quote
cwaa
I received my Duet Network control and after two days I still can't get it connected to my network. I have asked for a RMA to send it back. I will go back to Smoothie.

you got a Lamborghini there . the thing that you cannot drive it doesn't make this a bad car....! so go on smoothie but keep in mind that many other users on the world think this is a top product so stop crying like a baby and shout everywhere this is a crap board.

i aam one of these peopple who can drive a supercar but cant afford it .....!

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Delta Printer
Duet 0.8.5 firmware 1.19

I spent $180 for what was supposed to be a great tool with outstanding support. And I will bitch about it all I can. Their support sucks. I have been off work for 5 days and have made very little progress. I have a mechanical engineering degree, an industrial engineering degree, and up until 2000 I owned and operating a software training and networking consulting company. I may not be the smartest one here but I am not dumb and it shouldn't take 5 days to find out the configurator tool doesn't work. It was not advertised as a Lamborghini, but a car anybody could drive, so stick it up yours.

@cwaa I'm absolutely no fan of DC42's habit of regularly and subtly promoting his products here as the perfect solution for everyone. However, I will say this, he's intelligent, supportive to this community and his customers, and creates quality hardware/firmware. I completely understand your frustration, but coming here and making multiple posts trashing the DUET across several threads just makes you look bitter and juvenile. Complain on their official forums please.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2018 12:18PM by obelisk79.

I am very bitter and I am 71. It's truly not the best and I will use every site to express my feelings. Posting on their site only lets other ignorant people like myself make the same mistake.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2018 05:22PM by cwaa.

I think there is another side to this issue. If my first printer had been a inexpensive unit using marlin and 8bit electronics, the transition to Duet would be much easier. I have no data for this but its a feeling I get. My first firmware was Smoothie Ware. It was designed to make life both faster and easier. I learned it very easily. When there was a problem you were able to talk to the board designer and the firmware designer. If there were problems they could be looked at from both sides. With RepRap firmware, Duet uses it but doesn't control. If it doesn't work its no problem, just contact who on RepRap? That's how I felt when I could not get the configurator to work. Who the hell do I contact. Its not me said the plumber, call the electrician!

DC42, if I'm not mistaken helped both design the board and the RepRapFirmware for it... perhaps send him a sane private message and ask for some guidance?

a guy with his knowledge and the incapability to set up a top product from all perspectives, who entering threads, forums and all the world saying that this product is crap, is not a guy looking for guidance, but an old man with an attitude problem. he could find guidance and help as thousands of users did ( without these degrees) but finally that was not the point.

the lamborgini is a car which anybody who can afford it can drive it. is is called user friendly . formula1 motogp and jetfighter planes is what you probably have in mind.

so you have to reconsider ur perspective on ads too.

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Delta Printer
Duet 0.8.5 firmware 1.19

I don't have to do anything!

Quote
cwaa
I am very bitter and I am 71. It's truly not the best and I will use every site to express my feelings. Posting on their site only lets other ignorant people like myself make the same mistake.

@cwaa, I'd really like to help, but as there is no user account called cwaa on the forum at duet3d.com I can't tell which posts there if any are yours. Did you create an account on the Duet3d forum, and if so, would you mind telling me the name you used?

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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].

Quote
dc42
@cwaa, I'd really like to help, but as there is no user account called cwaa on the forum at duet3d.com I can't tell which posts there if any are yours. Did you create an account on the Duet3d forum, and if so, would you mind telling me the name you used?

i express my opinion in the past about the quality of ur support that is the only thing higher than the design of ur products. but trully as a businesman i am wondering what do you have to gain from this kind of people ?

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Delta Printer
Duet 0.8.5 firmware 1.19

Look, I have the board set up now with help from the digital dentist and others. I don't need your help now. We will see if the hardware lives up to its "best" reputation because the documentation doesn't. Why don't you update the configurator and put notices out that it only works with one browser. Have you heard of M307? How do you ask questions about the definitions in the configurator??????? In the first 12 steps to hook up to the internet.....if all else fails, your test program defaults to 192.168.1.14. So unless you have that particular address set aside, like my network does, you will never know it's messed up. So then of course I am trying to identify what device on 192.168.1.14 its conflicting with. A Mac address would be helpful, but I find out that Duet makes up its MAC address and it can change them. How the hell do you tell your router which MAC address you are dealing with? So I changed the Duet back to DHCP and let it choose any address it wanted. Then I used the generated MAC address to then set up a static address on my network. OF course when I talked to Filastruder, who sold me the board they said it was my router. And like others here, suggested I wasn't smart enough. You could also put a link to your Duet forum on Filastruder. They have nothing on support and it was several days before I discovered your forum.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/2018 04:16PM by cwaa.

Money!

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Gaou

Quote
dc42
@cwaa, I'd really like to help, but as there is no user account called cwaa on the forum at duet3d.com I can't tell which posts there if any are yours. Did you create an account on the Duet3d forum, and if so, would you mind telling me the name you used?

i express my opinion in the past about the quality of ur support that is the only thing higher than the design of ur products. but trully as a businesman i am wondering what do you have to gain from this kind of people ?

Money!

there are money and there are money. some of them crusified Jesus. so no ur money doesn't make any good to any pocket.

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Delta Printer
Duet 0.8.5 firmware 1.19

Its a shame its taken a bit of effort to get it working. I admit to having pulled a hair or two out, every now and again, but most of my hair I lost using arduino-ramps and Marlin 3 years ago. Duet does require a fair bit of knowledge to begin with, its not a board I'd recommend to beginners, unless they were willing to take their time, gain knowledge and then figure it out. Sure the documentation could be made more user-friendly but there aren't many people who, once they have it working, that say it wasn't worth the effort.

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Simon Khoury

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

Right now we have a vacancy for someone who can improve the organisation of the documentation and write more Dozuki guides to help new users. All the information is there in our Dozuki wiki, but there is a lot of it because RRF is so flexible, and it isn't as well organised as it could be.

On the specific topic of needing to change the M552 command in config.g when installing a Duet Ethernet, this is missing from the Start Here guide. I have raised this with my colleagues.

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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].

In the past, I chose the Smoothieboard. Have no regrets as it is a very fine board. Most of the pro's and con's between the both, are a bit moot points. However, if I were too choose now, I would not think twice about it, and buy the duet wifi.

3 main reasons for this:

1) the web interface on the duet. Smoothie does have some sort of web interface, but it's crap. So I'm using octopi.
2) the fact that smoothieboard development on the hardware side seems to have stopped. They were announcing a v2 as soon as 2016, even stating it was in final stages, and it's still not there
3) the fact that their main developer (wolfmanmj) is a total and utter buttwipe who cannot work with others and is not that gifted of a developer as he thinks himself

It appears to me smoothieboard is either dead or dying. Promised hardware is not coming, and software development is mostly done by one person who cannot co-operate, and has also slowed A LOT. Even after 3 year, there's still no decent web-interface, tho the board has the hardware for it. I could write a nice webinterface for it, but see point 3) in my list above. Not going to contribute to it, and I'm not the only developer who thinks about it this way. I have spoken several developers about this issue.

Lastly one thing which is negative about smoothieboard, as their devver isn't as great as he thinks, the board can mess up your SD card if you keep the SD card mounted remotely.

Also I'd like to add that getting a smoothieboard can take some time, it's a typical French company. Things happen when they happen, or don't, you never know. Support is good (I got a replacement for a bricked board) but very slow and again, with the French flair.

Maybe a simple network configuration tool could be made so it's easier for beginners to set it up? Something that replaces the terminal client part should be trivial to make. Just connect the board using an usb cable for one time to set it up and let it auto detect the setial port. Input the wifi password and ssid or ethernet settings, save, and retrieve the ip address and report back to the user. Using c# and xamarin or c++ and qt makes it multi platform.

I like my duet 2 wifi. The only small niggle is that the wifi doesn't start up everytime after (re)boot. But that should be fixed with the next (or by this time) current firmware.
Before I bought it I did a little research how to set it up and possible issues I might run into by reading the support forum, much like I do for many other pieces of complex hard or software. Setup was quick having prepared for it a bit.

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Kind regards
Imqqmi

NFAN CoreXY printer:
[reprap.org]