[gnea/grbl-Mega Issue#72] Hardware

#1 – chamnit 于 2018-08-30

@greyltc : Not that I know of. Mega support has been a side project more than anything.

#2 – bdurbrow 于 2018-10-27

Well, FWIW I’m bringing it up on an ebay-sourced RAMPS 1.4 w/ Reprap Discount Smart Controller (the one with the 20×4 character LCD, not the graphic LCD – for speed reasons).

For my larger machines, that use Geckodrives instead of Polulu-style modules, I’m going to have to DIY a buffered breakout board…

#3 – MeJasonT 于 2019-02-26

I’m concerned about obsolescence, for a couple of years now our genius creators and willing coders have taken GRBL away from the humble Atmega 328 and onto The Mega and ARM processors but as mentioned there has been very little hardware development. For those of us who like building our own controllers there is next to no hardware information for the ARM version at all. If for example the trend is to use the M0 then surely the coders know what the pin designation is going to be, that information in itself is priceless. The M0 is probably now a bad example as the technology has moved on and so has GRBL. The fear is that Atmel announce they are discontinuing the 328 leaving many hobby builders using GRBL unsupported. Grbl’s future depends on its use-ability with hardware, for all the development taking place with regards the code the functionality and hardware is being ignored.

#4 – chamnit 于 2019-02-26

@MeJasonT : Few comments. AVR wont die for a long while. It’s simple, well known, and quite capable. ARM is ever changing, especially in the hobby market. Once you develop for one target chip, something better arrives around release. Nothing has completely solidified. This makes it difficult for both software and hardware people to commit to a platform.

#5 – langwadt 于 2019-02-26

M0 etc. are cpus, pinout and peripherals will wary wildly between manufactures and parts but I don’t see it matters much when using something that isn’t stretched thin on performance you can afford to abstract it and GRBL doesn’t need a whole lot of specific hardware anyway.

I don’t see how GRBL on AVR can become unsupported, the code it out there and does what it does, it is not going to change