ESP32 Printer Board

Connectors matter little, IMHO, as long as they can carry enough current. I like 2.54 pin spacing since you can route traces in between if needed, which lowers number of PCB layers and therefore cost.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/01/2018 02:26PM by newbob.

Quote
JustAnotherOne
@newbob I know the Juicyboard. (I don't claim that PCI-E plugs are my invention). From my experience gold is not too expensive. Then if you don't plug and unplug the connector then the HALS works. And if you have bad connections you can fix it with a bit of solder. The current requirements can be dealt with by using more than one pin for the high power connection.

I don't mean to discourage you. When I looked at it, I disliked things I already mentioned plus monopoly of the PCI-SIG, PCB thickness requirements probably others. In my mind it's not worth paying premium for things that do not lower costs or give user added benefit. I don't see advantage of having PCIe edge connector over plain 2.54mm header considering relatively low pincount involved, thermal cycling and mechanical stress (wiring pulling on the board, weight of heatsinks and fans).

IDC DC3 connector is cheap and it's good choice.
Pin 2 - 3.3v
Pin 5 - 5v
Pin 7 - GND
MOSI, MISO, CLK and four NSS can be on any other pins.
Developers with $3 ST-Link and standard IDC cable will be able to play with sub-board in Arduino using software SPI library.

That's a board to wire connector so I wonder about signal integrity. Can duex (duet's expansion card) communicate over SPI at 4MHz via ribbon cable?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2018 10:48AM by newbob.

Quote
newbob
That's a board to wire connector so I wonder about signal integrity. Can duex (duet's expansion card) communicate over SPI at 4MHz via ribbon cable?

Yes. Also the external SD card on PanelDue can be hooked up to the Duet using a 10-way ribbon cable, and uses SPI. Maximum cable length is about 400mm.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/03/2018 08:38AM by dc42.

---

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].

Sub-board for extruder and heatbed can be even be simpler.
It's just any low cost MCU with serial port to handle G-codes related to PWMs and analog reads.
One and more hotends can be supported.
This board can have more that 3D-printer use-cases as well.
There are no firmware is capable to handle ESP32 at this time, so should we start with opening stepper and extruder/heatbed sub-boards for any MCU boards and then to develop our own ESP32 main board?

P.S. I'm sorry if I interrupt you and trying to move to different dirrection.

Keep things simple. Don't fall for Moh-Maya (Hindi for "Attachment & Illusion" (to worldly pleasures and materialism)):

1. STEP DIR EN GND connections for External Stepper Drivers like TB6600 / DM542 / ST-M5045
TB6600 HY-DIV268N $11
DM542 $16
ST-M5045 $30
TB6600 costs slightly more than a Pololu module, can take higher voltages, and DM542 / ST-M5045 have 256 microstepping. Combine this with Step Multiplication and one can get 32/256,16/256 or 8/256 if they so desire.
No need to yearn for Trinamics (Moh-Maya). They might be good, but they are not the only ones.
Skip SPI for Stepper Drivers for now. It's Moh-Maya.
Lost steps are more often due to overheated Motors and Drivers, Insufficient Current, and Pulley and Bearing Jams. SPI can't do much other than inform you about missed steps.
The whole point of using Due is to have ample processing power. Variable Microstepping is, again Moh-Maya.

2. External Heated Bed and Heated Chamber connectors; to be used via DC MOSFET or SSR

3. Endstops (XYZ Min Max) and Thermistor (Bed, Chamber, Extruders) inputs.

4. Fan outputs (Chamber, Extruders, Extra).

5. Either external ( DC-MCB ) or on-board Blade fuses.

6. Pin-outs for USB / SD / LAN.

7. 128 X 64 Display (2.42" OLED will be cool!) with Rotary Knob or 5-button '+' Panel.

8. Higher voltage input: 24 V DC

9. Taking inspiration from Protoneer's CNC-Shield, some Laser, Spindle and Coolant Pins, etc.

Essentially, you will be makinga dumb Interfacing or Breakout board. Because Pololu sockets take too much space, STEP-DIR-EN will greatly reduce complexity and the whole board could be made on a 2 or even 1 layer PCB!

Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2018 12:21AM by RishabhX3576.

Standalone modules that you mention are for larger stepper motors whereas most 3d printers steppers are within 1-2A range. This means that steppers can and will overheat since driver current cannot be adjusted adequately. Also they are 5V IO which would require level shifting.

It still does make a sense to make a 'motherboard' with external mosfets, ADC and drivers. So far all components are available except good driver boards.

A couple of comments on the above several posts:

- Feature creep should be resisted, especially in boards designed for low cost. IMO the only point of a ESP32 based board is to reduce the cost of 32-bit printer electronics. So an ESP32-based board should be kept simple, basic and cheap. If you want all the bells and whistles, go and clone the Duet WiFi instead (it's open source) - just don't ask me to provide support.

- Somebody mentioned the Due. The processor used on the Arduino Due is from the Atmel ARM Cortex M3 series. Those are now considered to be legacy processors by the manufacturer and are priced accordingly (i.e. high) just like the Atmega2560. It makes no sense to use them in new designs. I migrated PanelDue from M3 to M4 last year to reduce production cost. ARM Cortex M4 and M4F processors cost very little now.

---

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].

Nice thing about supporting Due is that design can be universal enough to also support SAME70-XPLD board that is only $37 and many times faster.

Let CthulhuLabs start from Arduino Due.
Let the community come up with a better Firmware for it.
Once he / she / it gets it working fine and safe, he / she / it can move on to make a dedicated board like Duet or SmoothieBoard.

"A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With a Single Step"

As of now, we have to admit that there is no accessible, modular, and cheap DUE + Shield combo for beginners like Mega2560 + RAMPS 1.4 is.
Same goes for its Firmware. Marlin4Due is not as Solid as Marlin for Mega (please correct me if I'm wrong).

The reason why Mega + RAMPS worked is because:
- RAMPS was a shield and had pololu headers, instead of an all-in-one board.
- Arduino clones are available everywhere (Including developing and 3rd world countries).
---That's why you can still buy a MEGA for dirt cheap.
---Have a go at Aliexpress it you don't believe it.
---I am pretty sure DUE clones aren't going to go away at-least for 5 years.
- Even if MEGA is phased out, DUE will be its successor for a long time, despite its 3.3V limitation.
- Boards like STM Nucleo, or any EVAL boards are exotic.
---Availability is severely limited, price and shipping are exorbitant.
---I am currently building a 3D printer myself, and had to get a clone MEGA + RAMPS because Duet and Smoothieboard alone costs( + duties + shipping) as much as my total budget.
- A good board will compel devs to provide good firmware.
---I really hope the Marlin dev team supports your board.
- A proper Shield for DUE opens doors to many DUE compatible boards like UDOO DUAL/QUAD (Cortex-A9) and Hitex ShieldBuddy TC275 (Tri-Core Infineon CPU!)

In essence, don't deviate from your path.
Start Small and Ramp up progressively.
Once you have enough know-how, you can take on advanced projects.
Looking forward to your Printer Board...

When it comes to technology, there is no end to progress:
Hitex ShieldBuddy TC275
Bringing Multicore To The Arduino World

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2018 03:44AM by RishabhX3576.

Quote
newbob
Nice thing about supporting Due is that design can be universal enough to also support SAME70-XPLD board that is only $37 and many times faster.

RepRapFirmware already runs on that board. And of course on the Due, but without the web interface because the Due doesn't make the Ethernet pins of the atsam3x8e processor available.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2018 03:22AM by dc42.

---

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].

Thanks for pointing it out dc42 ( AC/DC-42 )!

CthulhuLabs, please pick any one of the following:
- Forego Ethernet / Wi-Fi for now.
- Use USB-OTG on DUE to connect a USB HUB and connect USB-to-LAN / Wi-Fi.
- Copy-Paste Arduino Ethernet and/or Wi-Fi shield, only if it doesn't use the same pins as other primary 3D printer controller functions.

What's your say on all this, CthulhuLabs?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2018 04:21AM by RishabhX3576.

Quote
dc42

Quote
newbob
Nice thing about supporting Due is that design can be universal enough to also support SAME70-XPLD board that is only $37 and many times faster.

RepRapFirmware already runs on that board. And of course on the Due, but without the web interface because the Due doesn't make the Ethernet pins of the atsam3x8e processor available.

Shouldn't it be possible to use SPI interface to hookup ESP8266 to it for WIFI, just like Duet WIFI does it?

Quote
newbob
Shouldn't it be possible to use SPI interface to hookup ESP8266 to it for WIFI, just like Duet WIFI does it?

Only if the SPI pins are free. The Duets use the HSMCI port of the processor to implement a fast 4-bit wide interface to the SD card, leaving the SPI pins free for the WiFi or Ethernet interface. But the Arduino Due allocates the HSMCI pins to other functions, so an SD card interface is normally implemented using the SPI pins. So implementing a network interface either natively or via SPI on an Arduino Due that can provide fast file upload to the SD card just isn't possible.

Basically, the designers of the Arduino Due made some really bad design choices. I guess they were just thinking of making a replacement for the Arduino Mega without considering what else it could have offered. Not making the Ethernet pins accessible was inexcusable IMO. Anyway, they discontinued the Due a long time ago, so it doesn't matter now.

---

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 guess we should focus on SAME70-XPLD since it does have SDCARD connected to HSMCI and comes with SPI0 and SPI1.

Quote
newbob
I guess we should focus on SAME70-XPLD since it does have SDCARD connected to HSMCI and comes with SPI0 and SPI1.

And it has Ethernet on-board.

---

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].

Looks like TMC2130 part cost increased 50% lately, pretty much matches the price of TMC2660. Maybe it means new boards are coming....

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2018 11:14AM by newbob.

cheap TMC2208 IC's: (under $2)
[lcsc.com]
it's just the 2A chip though.

You all are funny. Part of the reason I have not been responding on this thread is the feature creep. I'm working on the component layout. So unless I find a major issue in the schematic, the features are set.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2018 10:17PM by CthulhuLabs.

I figured I should probably put some clarification in this thread as people seem to have some weird ideas of what I am developing at this point.

1. The board is called NEMO.
2. NEMO will be running an ESP32 as its primary microcontroller.
3. NEMO will have a SAMD21 microcontroller acting as an IO expander, USB to Serial interface chip, and watchdog for the ESP32.
4. NEMO will be running RepRapFirmware.
5. NEMO will NOT be a shield for the DUE or any other arduino board for that matter.
6. NEMO will NOT have interchangeable stepper drivers.
7. NEMO will NOT be running Marlin. At least not till someone else ports Marlin to it.

NEMO will have the following primary features:
1. 240MHz 32bit Primary Microcontroller.
2. WiFi
3. Bluetooth
4. Full speed SD Card slot
5. Five integrated TMC2130 stepper drivers
6. 256x Microstepping
7. Support for endstopless homing
8. Support for up to 3 heaters with corresponding thermistors
9. Support for up to 3 fans with fan tachs.
10. Uses standard 12V ATX PC Powersupply by default
11. Can use a 24V powersupply with slight modification
12. Multiple Safety systems built in
13. Supports a Z-Probe
14. Supports an LCD screen like the PanelDue
15. All unused IO pins are broken out

My goal is to get the final cost for NEMO below $75 USD (hopefully well below that). This is less than what I paid for a RADDS board, Arduino DUE, and stepper drivers and NEMO has considerably more functionality. I should be able to get the cost lower than that, but that really depends on the volume of orders I get for it. Many of the components are significantly cheaper (like less than half as much) when ordered in bulk.

Right now my current hurdle is coming up with the funds to support NEMOs development.

Agreed. As for the software, I will probably cobble together a beta version of this hardware, as I have a lot of the parts on hand (esp32 breakout, samd21 breakout, a printer that could use an upgrade).
It would be enough to start working on the code for the samd21 and esp32.
Also, I approve of the higher current TMC's. Much more reliable and flexible.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2018 02:32AM by nathan25.

Nice. Are you planning to post NEMO to kickstarter or indiegogo?

I am not sure. I will probably end up crossing that bridge when the time comes. For now I want to get a prototype or two made and start working on firmware. I do not want to offer something that is not even working at the most basic level.

Also I see KickStarter as a blessing and a curse. It is great in that you get a bunch of funding right up front. That funding though is directly tied to merchandise you are expected to deliver. If unexpected costs turn up and you did not factor that into the backer price you can end up actually in the negative very quickly.

I have given some thought to setting up a Patreon or something like that where people can help fund its development. Not sure how that would work or what benefits I could offer to Patreon subscribers besides being eligible for the beta test and discounts.

@newbob - Where are you seeing that price increase? Digi-Key has them under a different part number for some reason that other sites. This seems to be skewing the cost data.

Designing a board for 12V with TMC2130 is a major mistake.

Quote
oysteinkrog
Designing a board for 12V with TMC2130 is a major mistake.

I actually fully agree with you, which is why I am specifically designing it to run off any powersupply between 12V and 36V so long as you also provide 5V where needed. A 12V ATX power supply already provides the 5V but you can also do this with a 5V voltage regulator. I am planning to offer an adapter board that will take between 12V and 36V in and spit out that input voltage plus 5V via ATX connectors on the proper pins, but you can make your own by chopping the cables off an old ATX powersupply and using a buck converter from ebay.

This board is designed to be used by someone who is building their first RepRap, but to also not rule out advanced users. The TMC2130 fits well into this design goal as it provides a number of amazing features that remove a ton of the headaches new users experience.

I choose ATX powersupply connectors because quality name brand ATX power supplies are easy to source. Most people should be able to find them locally. This is not true with other voltages.

I'm not sure if anyone is aware of it but the M5Stack system has a module with x,y,z stepper motor control https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/M5Stack-New-Arrival-Stepmotor-Module-for-Arduino-ESP32-GRBL-12C-Step-Motor-MEGA328P-similar-as-12V/3226069_32889109142.html?spm=2114.12010615.8148356.67.11c127ae937cVd

It uses a 328p programmed with GRBL. Here is a video i posted running one servo to build a photography turntable prototype.
[www.youtube.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2018 04:39PM by GRAYWOLF.

There's also this: [www.buildlog.net] and
[www.aliexpress.com]

ESP32 has so much going on I'm not sure it would be good to run the 3D Printer firmware on itself, now, since it has a serial interface it could easily work as a master for a slave accepting only G-Code input. I didn't read the entire thread, this has probably been mentioned.