Upgrade idea: Exit the Arduino, insert BeagleBone?

[lars86 42]

That looks like a really cool controller! I have been eyeing a replacement for the Arduino.

[JohnFox 25]

Why didn't you try the Arduino 'Due'?

It's a lot faster than the Mega and you can run touch screens off it.

[lars86 42]

It looks interesting, but a more modest upgrade.

It seems like if you are going to the trouble of sorting out different power requirements, etc, that you might as well jump to something even faster, and with more features, like integrated networking.

[jkridner 1]

This is a long thread and I haven't managed to read all of it. If you are looking to replace the controller with a BeagleBone, probably the easiest way is to use a Replicape:

http://www.thing-printer.com/product/replicape/

The big advantages of the BeagleBone over the Raspberry Pi are the integrated fast microcontrollers that can have a shared memory interface to the ARM for sending the stepper motor pulses really fast and reliably. There's also more PWMs (good for heating elements, fan controls, etc.) and ADCs (good for thermistors, etc.).

For firmware, Elias has rewritten Marlin as Redeem http://reprap.org/wiki/Redeem. If you you are more of an expert and want more flexible machine control, there is Machinekit http://beagleboard.org/project/MachineKit/.

[neotko 1,417]

The board itself looks quite great. I was about to buy it but I had to put the cash on other stuff. Anyway, for pt100 users isn't the most direct upgrade. The creator answered me some questions and with a voltage divider it could be used. The expansion of the replicape (creator said on the kickstarter page) will have pt100 (just 2). The amount of stuff that can be done with this board it's really nice. But for simplicity I will wait for other users to use it with pt100s. One good think it's that the replicape with bbb would be cheaper than a um2 board, and be able to be upgraded to use much more experimental stuff.

[lars86 42]

This is a long thread and I haven't managed to read all of it. If you are looking to replace the controller with a BeagleBone, probably the easiest way is to use a Replicape:

http://www.thing-printer.com/product/replicape/

The big advantages of the BeagleBone over the Raspberry Pi are the integrated fast microcontrollers that can have a shared memory interface to the ARM for sending the stepper motor pulses really fast and reliably. There's also more PWMs (good for heating elements, fan controls, etc.) and ADCs (good for thermistors, etc.).

For firmware, Elias has rewritten Marlin as Redeem http://reprap.org/wiki/Redeem. If you you are more of an expert and want more flexible machine control, there is Machinekit http://beagleboard.org/project/MachineKit/.

 

It looks like this is is not of the new Rev B, but I'm not sure how much has changed. A very thorough review, and it all sounds awesome... until you get to the software side:

 

[jkridner 1]

I think the software has improved a lot since the review. Do you have any specific beefs?

[lars86 42]

I have never owned or used one.

It would be interesting to see if Tom would re-review it with the newer software version.

Do you have any references about what has improved?