Hi, I am in the middle of planning my LR2 upgrade to LR3. It currently has a SKR pro board.
Since my LR2 build, there is now this Jackpot board. I am just wondering what the benefits are vs the SKR pro board to see if I want to upgrade to it during the change. (also to order everything at once to save on shipping).
Sorry if this was asked before, I surfed the forums a bit but couldn’t find anything specific on it.
Thanks
disclaimer: I own the skr board, not the jackpot and I also run an mpcnc, not an LR, so since you asked, I’ll give an opinion and others can weigh in as well.
The skr will run it. Dual endstop firmware is available, so you could just reflash and be on your way. If you want to buy a new controller, there are a couple things to keep in mind (let me try and oversimplify it):
SKR
The jackpot
The question is do you want to use a different controller or are you asking if the SKR is still current and supported? It is still very much in use and suitable for the CNC or a 3d printer.
If you are going to build a 3d printer as well, like the v5 that is in development, then grab a jackpot for the cnc and put the SKR on the printer for half the price. If not, you should be good to go as is.
Solid points by @orob
The only points I would add are on this:
The Jackpot can have a wired pendant connected (the FluidDial, from the same dev team that does FluidNC), and used to control the CNC for homing, jogging, probing, and browsing SD card to run GCode files which can be either cut jobs or macros, etc.
Several of my recent videos show the FluidDial pendant. Here are some from newest to oldest:
My build log of the FluidDial is here:
… and…
The SKR Pro 1.2 can have wifi/web interface with the add-on of a very inexpensive ESP01S module, supported by V1 Marlin firmware.
Thanks for all the input guys!
I don’t plan on building a 3D printer as I already have one. Mostly was wondering what I would benefit if I did change. From what I’m reading, most of the differences are mainly Interface/access choice differences. That pendant looks awesome and very handy for operating Doug!
If I were thinking about adding a laser engraving module onto my LR in the future. Does either board support it better?
Well, I learned something new… the one thing that turned me off about the jackpot board was no tft screen vs my 2 current skr pro 1.2 setups. I do not like the wifi headless setup, and do not want to drag my laptop to and from the garage.
Watching Doug with the pendant makes the jackpot more of an option in the future. 
As I understand: the jackpot running GRBL might be a better laser option because it will work with the lighburn software package as a sender, where Marlin can be used. My laser isn’t yet integrated, so I’d like a definitive answer on that one as well.
or you can use your phone to load the web page. An old 8" kindle fire my kids basically discarded once they got new phones will load the web page, however direct control is nice without having to worry about battery life and boot time or loading a browser. I do like the marlin button’s immediate and accessible movement to get things set just right before running. Not quite like the jackpot pendant you would have to build, but both are good options for that.
Yeah, no thanks. Wifi has a habit of dropping out at the worst possible time. Don’t like it, don’t trust it. I work with large industrial machinery all hard wired ethernet for a reason. Had an intern a few years ago that thought wifi was the greatest thing since sliced bread. He tried to download an update over wifi and ended up bricking a $7k processor when it dropped mid download. It was not a pleasant conversation when i had to submit the req for a new processor.
I agree with this. Networked devices that will be permanently or even semi-permanently connected should use a wired connection. I save wireless for non-critical devices that have to be portable.
Wifi is fine for going online and monitoring code and even for minor, non critical online editing where losing the connection won’t be catastrophic, but anything more than that and you’re playing Russian roulette.
That is a healthy outlook and given your experience, very understandable.
I use wifi to upload gcode , sometimes to set the machine / home, and start, but not to send. The sender to controller is always hard wired (sender-usb-board). If it goes south once the sender is running, I have a button to kill power to it. Wifi for setup, start and stop has proven to be reliable for my garage uses and the cost of failure is orders of magnitude less than an industrial shop. On the SKR, the raspberry pi acts as the sender via usb. On the jackpot, the esp32 acts as the sender from its memory storage. Once the gcode is uploaded, the wifi just gives updates to the user, but real-time control of the job is not done over wifi once it starts.
Just for clarification: For each of the systems that have wifi (raspberry pi or esp32), the wifi transfers files and updates the web page user interface, but wifi is not used as the live data link for cutting in real time (I’ve never used the 8266 wifi link for SKR so I’m not speaking to that because I don’t know how that works). The jackpot system runs locally when it processes the uploaded gcode that is already stored in memory. Getting the gcode on the device before running it may use wifi or sd card.
That’s more of design issue on the board. I’m pretty sure even these $5 ESP32s can OTA update without that problem. The firmware is fully downloaded to the flash, then updated from the local copy. In this day and age, these types of failures should no longer be a surprise, and a $7k+ board should be able to handle any break in connection. Those are possible, though less likely, on wired connections too.
This is a hobby machine. You can’t expect industrial machinery setups at hobby machine prices.
It is, however, very cheap and easy to make a rock-solid local wifi network for just your machine, that is every bit as stable as your wired connection, including battery backup for power outages, etc.
It’s a hobby machine with open-source firmware. That pendant, and even some of the parts in the machine, including the SKR Pro with TFT, are every bit as likely to fail at some point as what you can achieve with a proper network setup for the Jackpot with WiFi.
I have, both asded to the TFT screen and to the SKR Pro board. In both cases, the wifi injects code into a serial stream to tell the board to load a file from the SD or USB port. It’s likitation is which serial or USB drives it can read the directory of. If you put the module on the TFT then it can read the TFT ports, if it’s on the SKR, then it reads the board ports.
Lightburn works with Marlin as well, jt is just a different setup, but once working it’s fine.
The Jackpot can – apparently – handle the laser for raster (filled shape) operations faster than Marlin, but it isnt a large improvement. Personally, I think it would be hard pressed to justify buying a different solution when you already have a workable solution. If your SKR Pro board works, most effective would be keep using it.
Then again, I just bought a Jackpot for myself, lol.
Never said i did.
I have numerous projects in the gallery from my beloved hobbyist mpcnc.
This is why i normally do not comment on any control related posts. If you don’t kneel at the alter of wifi, someone gets their panties in a bunch.
I will avoid future control comments. My apologies
No, but you brought you “industrial machine reasons” into a discussion about a hobby machine, so there’s nothing out of line about what I said.
Nobody is kneeling at the altar of anything here. It’s 2024. Wireless networks run the world. To say that wifi is only useful for “minor, non critical” things, it’s just not true at all.
Every piece of every thing you use comes with some risk and failure rate. Wifi is no different. Neither is your SKR, or your industrial machines. Those rates are vastly different based on the amount of money you pay.
Certainly, if you can’t have civil discourse here with someone because their opinion is different than yours, then it’s probably for the best
Lol, connecting my LR3 to main wifi network was a PITA with the esp-01s module (PCB antenna) on the SKR. So ended up configuring as AP.
After killing my SKR, ended up with Octopus + ESP32 module. Wi-Fi seems better (I haven’t measured packet loss, jitter, signal-noise, etc…). The ESP32 module has a uFl wire antenna which can help boost signal strength (when fabricated and assembled ok). Ideally, wouldn’t need to run as an AP, and I’d add a wifi repeater in the garage, and sacrifice a goat to the wifi gods just to be sure.
No idea if/what effect emf from my router has on wifi signal.
JackPot didn’t exist when I was building. If I was starting a build from scratch today, I’d get a jackpot. However, I would miss seeing machine status messages, IP address, connects/disconnects, and run status/prompt messages that you currently get on the SKR with a TFT connected.
Cheap monochrome LCD option for Jackpot would be nice, no idea if I2C display module or similar are supported.
I use tablet + BT keyboard to setup/control/monitor jobs. Can do that with JackPot, or SKR with wifi module.
Whoa, don’t speak ill of wifi or you too will end up on the list to be dragged off to the gulag.
I use wifi because I’m lazy. Your views are valid and reflect experience. Don’t apologize for that. I’m just trying to help illustrate more of how it works, not that you have to use it. I prefer it, but it has its moments.
Whoever supplied/implemented an OTA system that bricks hardware unrecoverably mid download is incompetent in that scenario, not the user or the network.
An esp32 is a $1 processor and the designers and & devs know better than that.
The SKR isn’t networked at all. The ‘networked’ element of fluidic, which doesn’t have to be wifi, is for uploading files - which then run locally- and for the UI. So if it drops the job just keeps running.
And a reminder; No one should be running their cnc remotely, however it’s networked.
It is pretty common with firmware updates in industrial plc processors and vfds. Been that way for decades. Rarely they are recoverable.
It was only a reference to a specific instance where wifi dropping mid download caused an issue, an expensive issue. Not comparing industrial machines to hobby machines as i was accused of doing…
I apologized, even though i did nothing wrong but voiced MY opinion.
Anyway, moving on…