Raspberry Pi Gertboard

I was wondering if the new Gert Board provides an opportunity to create a raspberry pi-based solution? I know little of the electronics aspects of reprap, so perhaps this is wildly offtopic.

The current Gertboard reservations are $46.50, and the raspberry pi itself is $35, so I'm wondering if this might make affordable a solution where you can connect to the raspberry pi as a dedicated "machine" that controls a reprap.

More speculatively, If it was done through a web app perhaps using websockets to give it that real-time feel, you could create a nice UI that could even be driven by a phone. I'm a software developer, so I have no idea if the hardware part would provide what a reprap needs, though. Thoughts?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/2012 09:47AM by reprap_music.

It seems that Raspberry Pi folk are determined to reinvent the wheel. The gertboard is basically an Arduino...

Since we already have perfectly good Arduino based Reprap printer controllers, it would be logical to control the Reprap from a Pi via a serial port. Just install pronterface on the Pi. That has been done. If you want to write a fancy new GUI to replace pronterface, go ahead.

If you want to control the Reprap remotely over a network, install the serial port sharing package on the Pi and run the Pi headless. Also been done. Now if you want to write an app for your Android, go ahead.

I appreciate that Pi users want to find uses for their new toy, but printer controlling is really already done.

Unfortunately, bobc is approximately correct. The gertboard does not bring out enough high-power I/O to make it useful as a single-board expansion for the raspberry pi. You would need to build another board for the stepper motor controllers and the hot-end controller. You'd be better off doing a dedicated board to expand off of the Raspberry Pi.