> On May 1, 2024, at 8:55 AM, andy pugh <bodge...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > I think that the attraction of the Beagleboard was that the PRU could be > used for step generation and encoder counting.
This gets into the difference between a Linux PC and a microcontroller. The microcontroller has lots and lots of peripheral hardware, things like timers and PM generators, and hardware quadrature decoding and D/A converts and whatnot. Whereas the typical PC only has “ports” that move data. The Beagleboard is kind of in the middle. It is actually poor at doing either job but the fact that it had real-time outpit pins made it really attractive. There are some really exelent hardware platforms that could be used for LCNC but who wants to get them to work when there are off-the-shelf solutions. Saving $300 on the hardware is not attractive if you have to write the software to make it work. Look at this board. It sells for $90 and could run LCNC. It has a Raspberry Pi equivalent that comes with Debian Linux installed, has 2 GB RAM and fast 32GB storage, and has 4 stepper moter drivers that are good for about 2 amps. Really, this is a Pi4, with breakout and drivers for $90 and has a warranty and some minimal level of customer support. The problem is that the LCNC ecosystem is not yet large enough to attract enough software developers to write firmware for every “every chip in the world”. So we are kind of stuck with what’s available now. _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
