On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 7:35 PM, Ed Nisley <ed.08.nis...@pobox.com> wrote:
> 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. > This is why I so strongly recommend the Makergear Mosaic. Unlike Makerbot, Makergear has a history of truly standing behind their products. It is a simpler design than the ToM, has a larger build area, and a $3-$500 lower price to start with. > 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. > You are reading too much into my comment... I didn't say we will be using an ARM, just that your view that ARM would drive the cost up was flawed. > > > 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. > This was the way we were going originally, than we stopped, sat back, and rethought the problem. The fundamental flaw in your reasoning (and ours originally) was that the Arduino is underpowered. As far as raw machine control, it is just fine. It does limit our future expansion some, but for it's core purpose it does the job just fine. In addition, we realized that people are not necessarily going to want their printers on their desktops. They will want them in the other room, or even in a closet. And they certainly are not going to want to have to walk to the other room just to start a print. Unlike with a mill there is no setup of the machine needed before starting a print, you just home and go (in theory at least, I concede that at present this is not the reality, but things are definitely improving). For these two main reasons we realized that moving the UI from your desktop machine to the printer itself was a flawed goal that was actually making it harder for most people. > 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... Neither. Both of your options are much harder to use than they need to be. As for the cost of a touch screen, I wonder if you ever considered that probably 80% of reprap owners already have a touchscreen computer that they use every day of their life? I mean, of course, a Smartphone. Between tablets and smartphones, touch-screen computing is is becoming ubiquitous, so why make people pay for a dedicated touchscreen monitor when they already have one in their pocket? But of course, we don't want to require a tablet, so we spent a lot of time and effort to come up with a solution that meets everyones needs. We are not ready to announce anything yet, but I think you will agree in the end that the way we are going has the benefits you want along with the ease and low-cost that I demand. I have no doubt that this is the way the "next 10,000" will interact with their printer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ EditLive Enterprise is the world's most technically advanced content authoring tool. 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