Hi,
Although I am personally using the ubiquitous Arduino Mega 2560 + RAMPS 1.4 combo for all my printers (in other words, the "standard" 8-bit electronics) and am quite satisfied with it, I recently began looking at 32-bit alternatives, since there is the constant rehash in this forum that "32-bit is the future". And I agree that it's not just because of the number of bits in a processor, there are many things involved in choosing an MCU for an embedded application, among other things price, availability, software support, processor performance, etc, etc, etc. At some point in time (which apparently has not been reached quite yet as far as I am concerned), it will become cheaper and more practical to use a 32-bit processor (and sometime later 64-bit processors will become the norm too - progress never stops!).
Back to my humble request: the information about newer 32-bit electronics is scattered around various subforums and the topics concerning 32-bit electronics are themselves hard to find, mixed as they are among the much more frequent topics concerning older (8-bit) electronics.
So basically I am proposing that a subforum "32-bit Electronics" be created. Or if you don't like the 32-bit limitation, "Advanced Electronics" with a description such as: "high performance, 32-bit or 64-bit electronics for your next RepRap 3 Printer". Like that people who want to discuss existing 32-bit solutions or proposed (vaporware) ones can focus their posts and searches for information in a single place.
Does any of the above sound reasonable to anybody?
Thank you for reading so far,
Andrew

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2015 07:53PM by AndrewBCN.

I see no point in further cluttering up the landscape of subforums. It's true, we're slowly getting into the transition from 8-bit to 32-bit, but at the end, all of them are just printer controllers. Some with more features, some designed for a low price. Some slower, some faster. But all based on the same principle.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/2015 08:27AM by Traumflug.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

I do agree that it makes no difference whether we have an 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit or 64-bit MCU as long as it does the job (I know, that's rather vague, but you get the idea).
However, we already have a division of the Electronics forum into 7 subforums including one subforum dedicated to Sanguinololu and one to Gen N+1 electronics, and there is no subforum that focuses on - let's call it like that if you want - the "next wave electronics".
I do not think that adding an 8th subforum would clutter the Electronics section excessively, and if one is after cleaning up the forums, I would suggest for example archiving the Darwin subforum, which saw its last post in June 2014.
Note that it is not my intention to argue eternally about this matter, I guess sooner or later the 32-bit electronics subforum will be created by sheer necessity anyways, I just thought that it would be a good idea to concentrate the posts about 32-bit electronics in a single place to make searching for information easier. Right now these posts are scattered and hard to find, which to some degree hampers information exchange and further developments in this area.

I agree with Andrew, there is currently no good place to put discussions about controller boards other than RAMPS. A new forum topic is needed. I don't care whether it is for 32 bit electronics, or any electronics other than RAMPS, but we need something more focussed on controller boards than the Electronics topic. Meanwhile there are topics such as Darwin and Gen 7 Electronics that have little relevant activity and could be retired or archived. There are other topics such as General and Reprappers that could be merged as the subjects they are used for are not materially different.

I would also like to see separate topics for support of different firmwares, in particular Marlin, Repetier, RepRapFirmware and Smoothieware.

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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].

Quote
AndrewBCN
However, we already have a division of the Electronics forum into 7 subforums

Well observed. That's why I think making things worse doesn't make things better :-)

Quote
AndrewBCN
one to Gen N+1 electronics [...] let's call it like that if you want - the "next wave electronics".

Shortening your sentence this way changes its meaning (sorry for that), but now it makes sense. The "Gen N+1" forum means to be the "next wave" forum. We had times when all controllers were given a generation number (2, 3, 4, 6, 7) and the name "N+1" was choosen at that time. No objections with renaming this subforum to align better with more recent recognition. Also no objections with joining two or three of the older ones into "Older Electronics" or whatever.

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Quote
Traumflug

Quote
AndrewBCN
However, we already have a division of the Electronics forum into 7 subforums

Well observed. That's why I think making things worse doesn't make things better :-)

IMO the current Electronics subforum categories make very little sense. Some of them are hardly used and have limited relevance, such as "Hobbyist" and "Servo motors". The "Stepper motor" topic also doesn't deserve a subforum of its own. How about:

Printer controller electronics (except RAMPS)
RAMPS controller electronics
Motors, motor drivers, servos
Other electronics

That's 3 fewer topics than currently, and it includes an obvious place to discuss printer controller boards. If you want somewhere separate to discuss future (unfinished or non-production) printer controller electronics, then perhaps a "Future printer electronics" subforum as well.

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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].

OK, so I switched to admin mode myself and did the following:

- Rename "GenN+1" to "Next Wave".
- Renamed "Electronics" to "Controllers" to better distinguish from "Hobby..."
- Renamed "Stepper Motors" to "Stepper Motors, Servo Motors, DC Motors"
- Moved all topics of "DC Motors" to the latter and deleted DC motors.

Good? Anything else?

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Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

Sounds good to me.
Also the subtitles are quite good too.
Thank you, Markus!

Thanks, that's a substantial improvement IMO!

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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].