Okay, I finally got an answer, that had previous kept changing. I am nearly out of SKR’s again, the new boards with a fixed endstop resistor stack is about a month out.
Do I wait, surely loosing sales, there is about a 1-2% failure rate.
Do I get a batch and hope it is still a 1-2% failure rate.
The jackpot is amazing but I am happy to keep it a slow rollout and make sure things are working as expected. We have a 100x more SKRs out there than Jackpots.
I’d hope for the 1-2% if it hurts sales otherwise. You could add a disclaimer in the shop maybe?
Will lost sales be more or less than time lost troubleshooting and replacing that (hopefully) 1-2%?
Jackpot’s still relatively new, should there be a blocking issue, having 2+ options (redundancy) seems to help (availability), I.e. always able to ship kits?
I am just worried that if I do not have skr’s some people that would not otherwise try a jackpot will get one. While I do actually think it is easier, I prefer there to be options. That is why I have not added the jackpot as a controller option yet to the kits.
Do you really believe it’s only a 1-2% failure rate?
You could make DuPont to JST connectors with a built in resistor so anyone could easily add that inline.
Your prices are very competitive. I can’t imagine there is much margin left if you had to pay to return a SKR and pay to ship out a replacement.
The reason I went with the Jackpot as a new user was primarily because of the failures I’ve read about with the SKR in the forum.
That led me to wait, which once it was getting close to release, I pulled the trigger.
I think having the screen on it is nice, but I rather have an interface built for the CNC anyway. For me, I was going to have to learn something I haven’t played with yet anyway, so it might as well have been what would be the preferred choice in the future.
It’s taking some getting used to, but I feel like I’m better off having made that decision, so I’m glad I did.
Mike, you’re active on the forums. You’re a perfect user for the jackpot. The fear is that someone who doesn’t ask for help would get some unique bug and then either wouldn’t ask, or go somewhere else and start bashing it. There is just a lot more confidence when we have a dozen or a few dozen successful users.
Even if we had the jackpot in fill swing, having a few months of overlap would be really helpful. Maybe even indefinitely (since a lot of people still prefer a screen).
I like the idea of adding a fix to the boards. It would make sense for the 1-2%. But it would be a pain to do it 50-100x for every one error. Testing would be a pain too, especially if it wasn’t 100% successful. But it would only be for this temporary batch of boards, right? Reminds me of the ramps…
Am in this camp. Screen helps understand/troubleshoot network state. Screen helps prompt tool changes too. Haven’t tried Jackpot yet (no new projects until I wrap up existing), so curious how they’re working out for people.
I get that, and certainly understand the risk. I just wanted to feed that back to Ryan while the thread was focused on people making that choice.
In a perfect world, I like to assume people that are competent enough to think they can tackle building themselves a CNC are also competent enough to come ask for help with issues they can’t solve on their own, but I also know that is maybe asking too much 
Edit: In re-reading this, I just wanted to make sure this didn’t come off as condescending, as I didn’t intend it that way. I just meant that it’s a big project to attempt, and this forum is one of the only reasons I was willing to risk the time and money I was going to need to put into it to use this as an entry project into this world.
Hopefully, I’ll get using it a bit more soon and can help feed back any issues and help bring the confidence up.
I haven’t run with 3.7.8 yet, so I don’t know if this has changed, but my experience with prompts is only that it’s some text down in the log. It also took me a bit to realize that there was a little “Play” button to resume, so originally I was going to manually send the “~” command every time.
I also prefer a screen local, so I have been toying with the idea of taking on a project once my other ones are done to take this project as a starter:
And make me something better suited for how I use it. If I do, I will start a thread and maybe it can be a bit of a collaboration if someone wants to work on it as well
I see a new email or forum post about them switches every 50-100 boards.
So far most have been happy to just pop off the LED and keep going. The LED obviously doesn’t do anything. It will still turn on and off even if the board doesn’t recognize it. So no harm in popping it off.
Yeah, I am not super confident in a test. It seems it is pretty hit or miss. But yes, if I get a batch right now…I guess maybe I will get a small batch…the next batch should be fixed.
Not at all, nope. Trusted voice to me.
Is there some kind of fixture or test jig that we could come up to make your loading/testing process more robust? So you catch those 1-2% and never get them out the door? Maybe this would be a “good thing to work on” note your poll about that… and maybe it is something some of us could help you with ideas on.
How big is a big batch, and how reliable is the supply chain for you at the moment?
My worry is they fix the board and that revision ends up breaking something else. No one ever just changes one minor little thing even like that goofed endstop circuit. They always change other stuff too.
Maybe a big batch now, lets figure out how to get your defect rate at shipment to zero without major workload increases for you, and meantime a small batch of the new boards so you can learn what issues those might have.
Also, at some point you’re going to have to bite the bullet and figure out how to do kits with the Jackpot.
I just bought 25, that might hold over.
They are just changing some resistors they are not even going to edit the revision number of the board (they should), so they should not be changing anything else.
Oh that is coming soon. This week 25 or so went out the door, the firmware is working good, it’s coming soon. Just want to see how everyone’s unique shop workflow handles Wi-Fi connections.
I’m going to start testing station mode with 3.7.8 later this week. My PC is a desktop, so I can’t carry it out to the shop with me. My WiFi doesn’t reach the shop though so I have another router on order to set up a mesh node to extend it. Should be delivered tomorrow.
It’s roughly an 80-100ft walk each way to make changes/upload/etc with the SD card…And that is getting old real quick while trying to test and work out my process lol
I did a short test with a spare router local in the shop last night and it seemed ok, but I couldn’t get my Desktop to connect to it through that older router in working in repeater mode.
Just remember after any testing you are doing that turns into make my gcode file, walk to the CNC insert the sd card and watch the machine work. There should never be a ton of back and forth in daily use. If people are worried about walking to get the card to load the file initially get a second card and always have one at the Gcode computer. That seems so much more simple than setting up a whole separate network to me (but that is just me). Sometimes I work upstairs on the other end of the house but I still have a SD card with me.
When I use it, my use case, I log in to board to start the file, stick around and clean or answer emails, then sign in to do any tool changes and that’s it. Just like with the SKR, rambo and ramps. To me the benefit is the user interface is fully featured (easier to use, half the price, and easier to update and configure), not that I can push a file remotely.
BUT, this is why I am not pushing this board hard yet. I do not understand everyone’s workflow. Also probably why we are in this situation. I never cared to test STA mode more than one time, I don’t want it on the same network as a bunch of rowdy/curious kids on random devices.
I also updated the configs a bit so remember to overwrite that yaml file as well.
I agree that as time goes on it won’t be as much of an issue, but I’ve been doing a bunch of short tests and having to walk back and forth a lot as I’m just familiarizing myself with it.
In the end I suspect the convenience of STA mode will dwindle, as I would have to go power on the machine first anyway, but it’s just enough for now to help not have to park the machine in a safe spot so the router doesn’t crash down, power down, and replace the card so many times.
I’ll check, I think I already had the August 10th version and there were no newer builds when I upgraded.
Edit: I see you committed some yesterday. I’ll update tonight.
But this is another reason for STA mode for me. I keep having to go steal my wife’s laptop to do config changes etc that, as far I’m aware, can’t be done from the SD card. Or can it? I didn’t find any way to copy files from the SD card to the file system in the interface
I hope 3.7.8 and the new yaml will make a significant difference. (you can update for the SD and not drag a computer down).
Yeah you should be able to. I will double check in a bit.
They said they are finally fixed, they changed these resistors from 4.7k to 1.5k. I can’t find the original thread where this was worked out. Is this correct?
Whoops I found it…I really should not type until my coffee is finished. Lowrider V3 Endstops Do Not Trigger - #18 by sru_tx
