On Sun, 2011-06-12 at 14:33 -0700, Mike Payson wrote: > a bit of a Makerbot champion
The *idea* behind the Thing-O-Matic is great, but the *implementation*, well, not so much. Plus, all the things on the their wishlist seem to be done deals with EMC2, but I digress. > "ship it, then sell them an upgrade when they complain". Which is why I have trouble recommending that anybody buy a Thing-O-Matic: it costs about $2k by the time you get it gussied up with everything required to make it work the way they described it late last year when I bought it. That's ignoring the inconvenient fact that not everything you'd get actually works the way it should; it's still a shop project. > ARM chips are cheaper than an 8-bit ATMega *pumps fist* Yesssss! I had a ten-cent bet with myself that when everybody finally admitted that an Arduino couldn't handle the load, they'd step up to an ARM and start from scratch. > since those same points are true of the RepRap today with > the host software. Ah, but look at it a bit differently: A dual-core Foxconn Atom (with parallel port!) + 1 GB DDR2 + 80 GB SATA is $150 *retail* at Newegg, so it's under $70 OEM. Add a custom interface board with the stepper interface and an Arduino-class micro that handles the heaters / fans / thermocouples for maybe $50 OEM. You get a headless EMC2 system for $120 OEM that runs rings around a de novo ARM, particularly because you don't have to re-write all that motion control and UI code. Example: Want a higher-end 3D printer system with touch screens, keyboards, joysticks, whatever? Would you rather have this: http://www.makerbot.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Interface_Text.jpg Or this: http://www.linuxcnc.org/docs/2.5/html/gui/touchy.html Given that a VGA-resolution 8-inch touch screen costs the same (admittedly, on eBay) as the MBI kit (modulo shipping), I think you see where I'm coming from. With EMC2, you just plug it in, load up the HAL code, and you've got a touch screen interface. Which printer UI would be an easier sell to the *next* 10,000 customers who aren't gearheads like us? Attracting their attention might be worth a hundred bucks right there... /rant [grin] -- Ed http://softsolder.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ EditLive Enterprise is the world's most technically advanced content authoring tool. Experience the power of Track Changes, Inline Image Editing and ensure content is compliant with Accessibility Checking. http://p.sf.net/sfu/ephox-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
