Originally shared by John Lauer The cool new Touch Plate widget in ChiliPeppr.

General CNC CNC Routers
, ,
1

Originally shared by John Lauer

The cool new Touch Plate widget in ChiliPeppr.
http://www.youtube.com/attribution_link?a=iJfWm3zIzJo&u=/watch?v%3DAfuDsyX3dSY%26feature%3Dshare

2

I have a 3040ZDQ 4axis and love it but the parallel port stuff is just so out of date.
Have you added extra limit switches to allow proper movement after limits are hit?

Chilli Pepper is great but it is entirely online and therefore useless for so many.
Octoprint is great and self contained but it’s for 3D printers.
Smoothie Board is easily the best controller for anything but there is such little documentation on its real use with models and cutting or printing that without a discount there is reluctance to shift.

It seems so silly they cannot get along to make a better “world”.

3

@Ritchie_Wilson I do know some folks have had an issue with not having Internet next to their CNC machine, but I do think it’s a minority of folks. The reality is the Internet isn’t going away and the cloud is too powerful to not be connected to it. Many of the new features getting added to ChiliPeppr rely on the cloud, i.e. the new backup/restore system for configurations and the upcoming machine vision module. So I don’t want to take steps backwards.

I have not added limit switches yet. I keep wanting to use an inductance-to-digital converter technique using Texas Instrument’s LDC1000 to get absolute positions on each axis rather than a limit switch approach.

4

@jlauer Why is the cloud needed? Mathematics and file IO can be done by computer on the planet. A cloud system of even mediocre power is expensive so where is the cost coming from and why bother when you can do it locally (more slowly)? Graphics and buzzwords sell well but they do not make the product better if they limit exposure.
An image or distribution package or ChilliPepper for Apache would make it immeasurably more appealing and functional. Yes updates would be harder and speed may suffer in calculating toolpaths but that is all. Perhaps coding public sector services for the cloud has jaded my opinion of these things but KISS applies in almost everything.

I dislike my limit switches being each end on the same pin as once touched the machine doesn’t know which end it is so stops entirely.

5

@Ritchie_Wilson Here’s the list of current features that rely on the cloud:

  1. You simply go to ChiliPeppr’s URL and you see the app (with OctoPrint you have to go through a full install).
  2. Text alerts on M6 tool change and end of job alerts.
  3. Collaborative development via JSFiddle with any number of developers who can manage their own code block and it is dynamically pulled into ChiliPeppr without the main author doing anything, i.e. no pull requests needed
  4. Integration into a central login server handled by Google
  5. Webcam client and serer use the cloud’s login system so the client can find what IP address your cam is on via WebRTC
  6. Always having the latest codebase
  7. Access to video tutorials, i.e. the Auto-Level tutorial is important
  8. Integration into JSCut so you can “send” your results in JSCut direct into ChiliPeppr

New upcoming features that require the cloud include:

  1. OpenCV server in the cloud to let you upload frames that are then recognized for fiducials, edge detection, hole detection, etc. This is hard to have folks install locally.
  2. Every time you change the configuration on your CNC controller it stores a backup copy in the cloud.
  3. Firmware auto-updater. It detects your firmware build and if too low, it downloads the latest and flashes for you.
  4. Pendant workspace that knows your login so it can link up to your Serial Port JSON Server automatically.
  5. Cloud aware SPJS that lets you associate your server with your login so the cloud can link up your workspace to your server without you having to type in your IP address of your server.
  6. Cloud slicer for using CP for 3D printing.

As you can see, without the cloud, ChiliPeppr actually becomes way less powerful and is just not worth considering.

6

Without the cloud I can only see it would be hardware powerful rather than out sourcing.
Collaborative (and pendant) workspaces, slicing and OCV are likely the only content that runs under cloud computing whilst the rest are just single server web services.

I was keen to go TinyG but with your input I can see it is shiny gimmicks over easy functionality. Nevermind.

7

@Ritchie_Wilson you’ll see the same thing on the Grbl side as well. It’s called Easel and it’s a spectacular app, but same cloud model as ChiliPeppr.