Hello Joe, I don't know the Chips you intend to use. I therefore can't help with the OE pin or Tri state. Klipper firmware is boosting about doing 100k and more steps per second. That will not be possible with this approach even with 10MHz SPI Clock. Usually these SPI GPIO Expanders let you define the Logic level on a pin from the SPI signal. Every time this logic level should change you needby JustAnotherOne - Developers
Hello Joe, How fast do you want your steppers to go? The standard steppers need a step pulse per step. That means you need to set the step Line high, then low again for each step. That would then be an SPI transaction for setting it high, and another for setting it low. Depending on the SPI Clock speed you want to use you can calculate the maximum step rate that you can achieve. If that is moreby JustAnotherOne - Developers
Does someone here has access to a Prusa mini? I have found the Firmware source code but could not find the bootloader. It is not here: Has someone already damaged their buddy board(breaking of the small tongue to make it programmable) ?by JustAnotherOne - Prusa i3 and variants
Using an FPGA as a printer controller is something I also thought about. And it might be a good solution for exact and fast movement. But I'm also a absolute beginner when it comes to FPGA. Having a (soft core) processor for each stepper might be overkill. It is then also necessary to synchronize them. If they are all in the same chip then this is only a software issue. I would assume an easierby JustAnotherOne - Next Wave Electronics Working Group
@kdodman the TMC2130 need a certain minimum speed for the homing to work. So if the axis moves to slowly, then the back EMF, that is used for the homing, is a too weak signal.by JustAnotherOne - Firmware - experimental, borrowed, and future
Quotejeroen79 I dunno, i rather have a litte more cpu power, would be nice to run webserver etc natively on the device You then better not compare the performance of that web server with Octoprint running on a raspberry pi. A lot of code is needed to make a web server work especially if you want dynamic pages. And downloading a big Gcode file will take longer than if you send it to a raspberry pby JustAnotherOne - Controllers
QuoteDust vertical steppers like ? as you can see it been done... I've never even heard of anyone actually having one also due version Yes that looks like the PCI-Express solution that I was thinking about. They even have a Trinamic Stepper module and SPI + Step/Dir signals. Would be really interesting to hear of people that have actually used this.by JustAnotherOne - Controllers
Quote+Mikie What problem with connector and mechanical stability are you talking about? I think mounting the stepper modules vertically instead of horizontal would be a good thing. It would help with cooling, it would easily allow for bigger (higher) modules and it would not waste board space on the main board. If the connector for the stepper motor was located on the module, then the user willby JustAnotherOne - Controllers
This bigfoot: bigfoot details does not have SPI. This format also wastes a lot of board space below the module. I don't see a real benefit in that format. It might make sense to put the stepper motor connector on the stepper driver pcb. This way these four signals do not need to be routed to the base board. For me the main problem is still the connector and a mechanically stable solution.by JustAnotherOne - Controllers
Quotenewbob Are there be any advantages on controlling heaters and measuring temperature on a controller rather than rpi? In theory the rpi is not real time, and a control loop should run regularly. But especially for temperatures that is no problem. The bigger issue is that you can not connect the Heater directly to a rpi GPIO pin. So you will need some kind of board. PWM and ADC are hardwareby JustAnotherOne - Firmware - experimental, borrowed, and future
@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. @AlexStar Boards with 4 steppby JustAnotherOne - Developers
Quotenewbob... unless motor connector is located on the board itself. That was the Idea. That was also the reason for me to be concerned about stability. I don't think that brackets that waste space on the main board would be the only solution. Another way might be a printed enclosure that houses the main board and the stepper modules. The enclosure could provide the stability for the modules.by JustAnotherOne - Developers
Quotenewbob 'popolu'/stepstick drivers offer only rudimentary driver features and have poor heat dissipation and therefore limit performance. We need a new plug-in format I would like to see a better plug in stepper format. The new format should have a bigger pcb (for better heat disapation) and more pins for SPI (to configure the steppers). Plugin modules with pin headers have the problem thaby JustAnotherOne - Developers
@newbob I like the Idea. But how do you want to connect the driver board to the cpu board? Jumper cables?by JustAnotherOne - Developers
ATX power supplies have limits for the Amps per line. And they usually have a lot of Amps on the 5V rail. Multiplying the voltage of the rail with the max amps on the rails gives the max power on the rail. Adding all rail powers up gives the Watt rating that they sell for. So if you need 200 W on 12V then a 200W ATX Power supply will not be enough. 24V is also beneficial for bed heating as youby JustAnotherOne - Developers
Quotenathan25 Name sounds good. Reminds me of Captain Nemo's advanced submarine... a technological accomplishment I thought it would be just another Fish themed name ("Finding Nemo"). So the firmware for the second processor could be Dorrie ;-) Erik van der Zalm started that Fish Theme, as far as I know. And also wasn't Captain Nemo the bad guy? Killing all military ships (including sailors) tby JustAnotherOne - Developers
Quotenathan25 I think that reliable USB-Serial conversion could be done on an 8-bit. That goes without saying. The remarks in this thread were only regarding flow control. Having the second MCU handle the USB communication means that the data somehow needs to be transfered from the EFM8 to the ESP32 and back. Using UART for that would be possible, but then issues might arise if one of the twoby JustAnotherOne - Developers
Quotedc42 QuoteJustAnotherOne There are also 8051 µControllers available that don't need a crystal can do all that is listed and more and are cheaper,... They don't provide the USB interface. They do. The first I found: And they are around 1 Dollar,... But they don't come with Arduinoo IDE, so you have to do real programming,.. ;-) PS: Wasn't the Idea to connect them to the ESP as an SPI sby JustAnotherOne - Developers
There are also 8051 µControllers available that don't need a crystal can do all that is listed and more and are cheaper,...by JustAnotherOne - Developers
You can put the direction pins on the expander but you need to adopt your software for it. The direction only changes at rather slow speeds and if your software can plan ahead then you can start the act of flipping the direction pin once the last step in that direction has been made. With this asynchronous dir flipping you should be good with an expander at low speeds. I would not use SPI on theby JustAnotherOne - Developers
I assume you printed that on the same printer. Do I see it correctly that the Marlin print has more details?by JustAnotherOne - Firmware - experimental, borrowed, and future
Let us all calm down a bit. Not everybody is proficient in communicating his/her thoughts. And having somewhat correct English doesn't imply to be a natural speaker. It will be the best for all of us to assume that we are all here to learn things. So lets focus on what we learned. Klipper and Teacup are very different firmwares that both operate a 3dprinter. So talking about up and downsides ofby JustAnotherOne - Firmware - experimental, borrowed, and future
@offtherails2010 could KiCad be an alternative ?by JustAnotherOne - Developers
Quoteekaggrat the usb many times drops the connection What does that mean? Do you think it was an octoprint issue? Is is a cabling issue of you USB? Does the USB device disappear on the PC/Raspberry/whatever ? Or is the data transfer corrupted? It depends on the details of your issue to say anything about how your experience in the future will be.by JustAnotherOne - Firmware - experimental, borrowed, and future
One way to go would be to sell the boards including the pololu adopters. You or others could then sell other stepper drivers on modules. This way people owning the board can always go back to pololu. SPI is only one issue of the pololu format. The small physical size makes it also hard to dissipate the heat or to support higher currents. With vertically mounted modules the modules could grow inby JustAnotherOne - Controllers
regarding my board: The first revision had some small (mostly easy to fix) issues. But my impression was that nobody cared for the board. So I did not push for a new revision. If you release the schematic of your board I (and others) could take a look and maybe give some feedback. I had STM32 die on me (probably EMI issues), also in other projects. And most reprap users seem to not care too mucby JustAnotherOne - Controllers
@victor_pv Yes the pololu headers are a limitation regarding spi. I think the Idea of the trinamic modules is to use jumper wires for SPI and have the SPI pins pointing upwards. (Tom did videos on that) Adding more pins is basically inventing a new form factor. I tried that myself: I think it would help to have a bigger stepper driver module form factor. The bigger form would make heat dissipaby JustAnotherOne - Controllers
support for the Trinamic steppers or general Stepper configuration support (basically just having SPI at the stepper modules) would be something the I would want from a new board. Also important for me would be USB device Interface as the UART interface. So no external USB to UART chip. But those are only my requirements. You might want to take a look at the STM32F466 (Is runs at 180MHz,...)by JustAnotherOne - Controllers
You will have better chances of someone to pick this up if you start the design work. Right now you are stating the bug/problem you have and that you want to have it solved. There is nothing wrong with that. But the next step to solving the issue is to define what needs to change. Especially with a host software (Repetier Host) in the mix. What needs to be done is to decide how the two softwaresby JustAnotherOne - Developers
@paulbearne regarding jitter: On all non synchronized(Systems that do not have a common clock) systems you will have jitter. The real question is: How big is the jitter? So how long can messages be delayed. And more importantly how long can the client wait for the next message. In this case we talk about serial communication (115200 or 2500000 bit/s) and Klippers event time line (Kevin is the eby JustAnotherOne - Developers