Generation 7 Electronics Development
Posted by Traumflug
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Re: Generation 7 Electronics Development June 23, 2018 01:34AM |
Traumflug,
have you thought or maybe planned to change the Gen7 board into a simple expansion board like the old RAMPS, and have a choice of several NPC processors on a DIP adapter board?
I understand the advantage and desire to have a controller DIY-possible, but nobody was putting Megas together in the old days. Maybe more desirable to have the "shield" separate from the processor?
I see a few Chinese boards using NPC1768 or similar, with many more available pins, and let's face it - the number of motor drivers and various other things people will want to plug into these isn't going to reduce but increase. Maybe time to make some sort of cheap reliable expandable foundation, just like the old RAMPS was? I for example want 5 motor drives, 6 endstops, hassle-free display and SD card pluggable board, probably hassle-free Raspberry interface of some sort. Other people will want that plus more, and there simply isn't anything like that that's affordable, familiar, simple, cheap, etc.
On a similar topic, I see Panucatt using what they call "Bigfoot" format for stepper drivers, with a much larger board that comes closer to specs when it comes to IC heat dissipation. Their boards have provision for both that and the old Pololu format on the same board. Why can't we at least attempt to establish a new standard format? I'm sure Chinese will not be far behind to keep us supplied
It's way past time to revive the old RAMPS concept. At the moment, getting a 32bit solution means either going to a ready-made commercial solution for quite serious price that's approaching or exceeding the price of ALL the other parts of a printer, or saving some $$ and getting a Chinese "black box". I don't know what's worse.
have you thought or maybe planned to change the Gen7 board into a simple expansion board like the old RAMPS, and have a choice of several NPC processors on a DIP adapter board?
I understand the advantage and desire to have a controller DIY-possible, but nobody was putting Megas together in the old days. Maybe more desirable to have the "shield" separate from the processor?
I see a few Chinese boards using NPC1768 or similar, with many more available pins, and let's face it - the number of motor drivers and various other things people will want to plug into these isn't going to reduce but increase. Maybe time to make some sort of cheap reliable expandable foundation, just like the old RAMPS was? I for example want 5 motor drives, 6 endstops, hassle-free display and SD card pluggable board, probably hassle-free Raspberry interface of some sort. Other people will want that plus more, and there simply isn't anything like that that's affordable, familiar, simple, cheap, etc.
On a similar topic, I see Panucatt using what they call "Bigfoot" format for stepper drivers, with a much larger board that comes closer to specs when it comes to IC heat dissipation. Their boards have provision for both that and the old Pololu format on the same board. Why can't we at least attempt to establish a new standard format? I'm sure Chinese will not be far behind to keep us supplied
It's way past time to revive the old RAMPS concept. At the moment, getting a 32bit solution means either going to a ready-made commercial solution for quite serious price that's approaching or exceeding the price of ALL the other parts of a printer, or saving some $$ and getting a Chinese "black box". I don't know what's worse.
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