Chumby Hacker Board

How about using the Chumby as the basis for the 32-bit electronics. Here are some pros:
-all the peripherals of a microcontroller such as analog-to-digital conversion, PWM outputs, sensors, bit twiddling, and broken-out GPIOs
-open-hardware
-runs linux
-ARM-based processor
-includes a touchscreen
-easily available
-big following in the hacker community

The cheapest one used to be the Chumby One for $119, but Best Buy just released a $99 version (basically an updated Chumby One), in addition to their $169 8.5" one. The board alone is also available via adafruit for $89, but it seems like people are just taking apart the commercially available ones to hack. On this trajectory, these boards could get even cheaper fast.

Some links:
[www.adafruit.com]
[www.chumby.com]
[www.bestbuy.com]

Comments?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2010 01:55PM by RepRich.

I believe that the Chumby Hacker Board would make a great Linux single board computer for running a Mendel or other current generation reprap. Most of the IMX233 chip's general I/O are used internally for expanded memory, microSD card, LCD, etc. But there should be enough to run 3 axes and an extruder, just not a whole lot more after that. And it might be interesting to work on an EMC2 based reprap machine, which a Linux host with lots of direct digital I/O should be perfect for.

Mie

I saw a blog on using EMC2 to run a RepRap:
[balingwire.blogspot.com]

and thought the Chumby Hacker Board might work well for this since the Chumby runs linux and EMC2 only runs on linux. Unfortunately EMC2 currently only runs on x86 hardware, although they work on 400mhz Pentiums with 512MB RAM, so I don't see why it couldn't be ported. I think you'd have to lose the LCD functionality to get access to a sufficient # of GPIO to run the stepper drivers. Anybody have any experience with EMC2 and have any idea if there's any reason this couldn't work?

My sense is EMC2 is a lot more mature than the FiveD firmware, so there are a bunch of benefits. Let me know if you think this is a worthwhile project.

Oh, and it should probably be moved to a new thread, but I'm not sure if it belongs under electronics or firmware.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2010 01:14PM by RepRich.

I would love to test something like that, once the soft part would be fixed.
Again one of the times when i feel bad about the fact that a monkey new born baby is better coder than me.

I think there is nothing better than the emc2/mach3 experience. There is about 400X more power in your current pc if you think about all the math, and the floating points that are done in the 8 bit arduino, that are converted to 32bit single float math.

there is work on better processor support, but i think there is also a shortage of supply on arduino and arm processors when demand creeps up, they become unavailable. for that I wish the world still new what a pic chip was. microchip always had those things...

The thing is that emc2 is kinda shunned a little here on rep-rap, sure there is support, but it is kinda currently a no no. A lot of people like the convenience of just plugging it in and knowing it does what it needs to. Emc2/mach3 also require knowledge on setup and do not work out of the box. Your average reprap person coming into the group does not know electronics in detail.

I personally believe, that what will end up happening in a few years time, is atom processors will make there way into the community, and Linux will be running on those machines, and those machines will have a portable distribution of emc2, and the display will be touch and it will have usb, and sd card reader, and the machine on its own will run a portable version of skienforge. oh, and another thing. already you basically could take a PDA, make int the brain, and just have a dummy chip do the on/offs for you...

The demand is not yet where the performance is important. that will probably be in a few years, when reprap faces the commercial 3d printer business selling for under 1200$ and needs to play catch up.


Anyway, all views here are strictly personal by me. I'm just voicing out some hidden frustration maybe. cough. done, all better now....

Imo, those 3d commercial printers selling under 1200$, are not reprap's competitors, those are actually derived from repraps. The way i see it, they follow reprap (not vice-versa). ECM is great, and a board with linux as reprap controller is godlike - and i would say it has the potential to simplify many current issues, and to develop areas wich can only be dreamed of today. Its *the* way to go, although there is some work to be done in order to get there, it will be done - its just a matter of time.