Gen4 Electronics still under development?

Not much happening here. Are the gen4 electronics still being developed?

I think Zach developed and released them, but while wearing his Makerbot hat. He's siloed that stuff from RepRap quite carefully, so I've been out of the loop.

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-Sebastien, RepRap.org library gnome.

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Remember, you're all RepRap developers (once you've joined the super-secret developer mailing list), and the wiki, RepRap.org, [reprap.org] is for everyone and everything!

So I guess we'll have to wait until Makerbot has sold all their stock of gen3 boards...

Is this for real?

> Is this for real?

There are others working on alternative electronics (and, I think, even alternative microcontrollers too).

I believe that "Gen4" was Zach's designation, and refers to his work. The whole "Generation N+1" concept is difficult to apply well in a fluid development environment, where several people or groups of people may be working to enhance or modify designs of one subsystem (electronics, in this case) at the same time.

IMO, this way of identifying Reprap electronics should be dropped in favour of named electronics designs. We have "Darwin" and "Mendel" cartesian bot designs; we could name electronics too, and so refer to them unambiguously.

For a look at one alternative design of stepper controller boards, see Adrian's work at the wiki page Pololu_Electronics [reprap.org] .

Jonathan

I agree on the naming scheme. But there still should be a "official" set of electronics for the reprap project so that it is clear which electronics will work with the standard firmware.
I'm a fan of the arduino compatible electronics because arduino makes own developments for not-so-electronically-inclined people much easier. The win you get out of the arduino community is imho a lot more valuable than possible hardware merrits of other platforms.
Thats why I'm most interested in a arduino mega based set of electronics. Using a standard arduino mega and placing all other needed components on a single shield also has its attraction but might be not be flexible enough for the broad spectrum of reprap variants out there.

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Tiberius
... there still should be a "official" set of electronics for the reprap project so that it is clear which electronics will work with the standard firmware.

RepRap doesn't do "official". The ones in the RepRap project svn tree for Mendel are as close as you will get. That is, the "Gen 3" electronics are currently as "official" as you can get in this community. They work with the standard RepRap firmware.

There are several people doing (creating/using) Arduino Mega based electronics, including Adrian himself. Johnny at Ultimachine has a working setup using a Mega and a shield (not sure if he also uses the Gen3 extruder controller, though). Rapatan recently posted a picture of his shield PCB design on the Pololu_Electronics page... and so it goes on. Lots of choices!

Once you decide to use a Arduino Mega board, you then have choices to make about using a shield, possibly:

1. No shield at all, everything else offboard
2. Shield used as basically a convenient wiring connector only
3. Shield used for mosfets powering heaters, and wiring convenience
4. Shield used for everything including stepper controllers (if they fit)

Which choice is 'best' probably depends on your viewpoint, I'd expect some cost/neatness/flexibility trade-offs.

For example, I've recently ( this week ) connected a "DFRduino Mega" ( a Mega "clone") to a chinese manufactured 4 channel "Stepper controller board" from ebay ( 4 channels are for X,Y,Z and extruder ). It also has a "relay" channel designed for turning on/of a spindle in a milling scenario that works beautifully for driving the heater element of the extruder. the only other electronics I have are three opto-endstops I pulled from an old HP printer ( or can be purchased from any electronics store for <$1 each). It's a nice setup, just 2x commercial off-the-shelf boards ( both *cheap* ), and...: No Makerbot electronics to be seen anywhere, No custom "shields", Nada!.

Buzz.

Interesting. So an Arduino Mega board (or clone) I/O pin can drive the "parallel port" inputs most of those cheap stepper controller boards seem to use just fine, directly? Any particular issues there?

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Jonathan

I have been sending Zach emails for the last month and the gen 4 electronics have been pushed back for another 6~8 weeks.

This is what Zach send me yesterday July 2 2010,

Hey Mark,
We're bringing an EE on next week and we've pushed back electronics until he's had a chance to go over them. I'm sorry about the delay. We're trying to get them out ASAP, but we need to make sure they're perfect before we do that. Thanks for being patient.
Zach

The electronics should have been out a couple of month ago, but I think makerbot does not want to upgrade yet. They probability still have a couple hundred sets of Gen 3 electronics they need to deplete before they upgrade. Its a mixed blessing, makerbot are seeling like hot cakes, but the electronics need to be upgraded Asap.....


Mark

I am looking at the stepper driver that is now version 3.3, and i can notice that from version 3.1 the connectors for opto endstops or even mechanical endstops are not on the stepper drivers anymore.

If i can make a board like that and use the min/max lines from the mb v 1.2, and basically ninja - steal the vcc and gnd from the stepper board ... would that work for endstops? Or steal it from the mb? Can mb operate that way to control the 3.3 driver?

Or how else to use the stepper driver v3.3 with the v1.2 mb and with 3.0 opto endstops. I made the mb 1.2 and extruder 2.2 from scratch (toner transfer) and now i am tempted to use 3.3 instead of 3.0. Havent made any yet, this would be the last part, but i intend to start doing some this week probably. This is why i am asking.

I can see that a reset line appear in the interface with the stepper driver 3.3, so maybe something could of changed in the way the stepper driver is "worked". Does that implies that changes in the firmware of mb would be required?. No ideea, please advise.

Sry, if this is a lame question - i am really a noob here )

Thanks in advance for reply / replies

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2010 08:11AM by NoobMan.

The new Makerbot Thing-o-matic has the Gen4 Electronics, so we may find out more about them shortly. But from what was posted by Makerbot they sound very similar to the Gen6 done by Mendel-parts - [www.mendel-parts.com]

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[richrap.blogspot.com]

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The new Makerbot Thing-o-matic has the Gen4 Electronics

Great. So, where's the download of the design files?

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Makerbot says it's on their internal Wiki at the moment so who knows?

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[richrap.blogspot.com]