+Peter van der Walt
Thanks for listing those. I want to add that the Smoothieboard is a single PCB (not 2 PCBs as the RAMPS+MEGA system is)- a single PCB is by far preferable.
Having ethernet, and the speed of native USB would probably be the high points for me. There must be little firmware problems with Smoothieware- I know in Marlin I have to disable the temperature protection setting- because it keeps falsely tripping.
But for me, price is the main hurdle- I think the 32-bit networked boards are definitely going to be selling for $30-$40 soon- but not yet.
That’s awesome if you solder your own boards- how many layers is it? Is it expensive to put together? I didn’t think about that idea- maybe that would bring the price down a lot- but it’s time consuming to get PCBs from itead, to get the components, etc.
+Peter van der Walt maybe so- I’ve already ironed out a working firmware- so it’s pretty much plug and play with RAMPS for me- but I’m looking forward to trying Smoothieware and other similar 32-bit open source boards. Once the mass producers in China figure out their preference- I’m sure the market will be flooded with them- just like it is for RAMPS+LCD now.
@Ted_Huntington if you really want something that is only 2 rolls of decent filament cheaper than what is available right now from US based suppliers you can find a smoothie board on Ali.
If you want a non-Smoothieboard controller that runs Smoothieware, I strongly recommend going with a vendor that supports the community, like Panucatt’s Azteeg x5. The Chinese vendors don’t contribute back into the project, don’t like obeying the open source licenses and sharing sources, etc. And because of that, the Smoothie dev team generally won’t provide free tech support to people with knock-off boards. (They do support genuine Smoothieboards and Azteegs.)
The MKS SBASE in particular gets a lot of complaints because of the onboard 8825 drivers. They don’t work well with many motors, particularly in 24v systems. You will often either have annoying humming noises, or ripples in the print.
@Ross_Hendrickson thanks for the link- yeah only $61 epacket- it’s tempting- but no LCD. Heres a ramps+LCD for only $20 http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Mega-2560-R3-Mega2560-REV3-1pcs-RAMPS-1-4-Controller-RAMPS1-4-LCD-12864-LCD-for/1947686596.html?spm=2114.01010208.3.28.1e6WIP&ws_ab_test=searchweb201556_1,searchweb201644_3_505_506_503_504_301_201_502_10014_10001_10002_10016_10017_10010_10005_10011_10006_10003_10004_10009_10008,searchweb201560_8,searchweb1451318400_-1,searchweb1451318411_6451&btsid=0afe0797-ed13-4dab-83a8-bed7ed3a1442 - for poor people without a lot of money it could spell the difference between affording a 3D printer or not being able to. In defense of free trade - many times a patent holder built on earlier designs- designs of other people- it’s hardly ever one person or team that creates something completely new- they all copied from somebody else usually- it’s the basis of learning- and how the thought enters into our minds.