Interesting new external driver board that Bart’s preparing for release…
Amongst the many niceties in the board:
I think Bart is becoming a board-a-holic! We just need a TMC version of that and no jackpots would be needed.
I have noticed he seems to favor external steppers.
if it will have ethernet then I’ll make linuxcnc work with it and we’ll be able to use it with plasma 
Or a translator board and we could add Ethernet to Jackpots…
@vicious1 maybe he heard you?
Sorry I did not look at dates! This was from February in September he said he is only focusing on external steppers from now on! Not sure why!
Yeah I am not sure why either. External drivers all have such course adjustments.
I just asked 
nosey I guess 
He never said specifically, but my guess is folks upgrading a legacy CNC or building a big machine overwhelmingly use and prefer external drivers- which may already be present in an existing machine cabinet.
Hobby machines are a pain in the ass for him to support, and they’re really thin margins.
Too many people use his work and contribute nothing back to him or Mitch. Especially hobbyists or penny pinchers.
That sucks.
I’m planning to order some of his boards for exactly the upgrade scenario I described above.
I also want to experiment with that Ethernet module and see if I can get one working on a jackpot.
So I made the mistake of Asking, Mitch of course (he and I are mud and water, I tell you) anyway,
Barts response was:
My boards are mostly targeting full featured CNC machines with big VFD spindles. Those need at least 2A per axis motor and that is not realistic with plug in drivers. TMC5160: I have a lot of experience with them is plug in packages and they are not reliable.
Don’t feel bad. Mitch is like that with most people.
I wonder if all the competition from other boards has made him stop designing boards with built in drivers. Maybe it’s not worth it to him anymore. There aren’t as many boards with external driver support, so maybe that’s his reasoning. He should sell more of them I would think.
Well I think Bart’s response above clears it all up. We are one of the few using nema 17’s, most machines use nema 23’s. Maybe a jump of 0.5A on those steppers is not as severe as it is on a 17. That would mean the external drivers are okay. It also means his board does work will all stepper sizes and types, Smart guy.
So in theory, could one use a test board for the tmc2209s as external steppers? Probably not huh
We use the built in communication of the tmc’s it would not be that easy…but yes if we used a few other extra pins.
The OpenCNCShield 2 had the option to either plug in modules for external drivers or buy adapters for the small ones (DriverModule Pololu - DRV8825 - A4988 | SW10019), I guess that might be possible for any FluidNC Board as well.
Though I don’t get the reasoning that he wants to support “real” machines. I haven’t met anyone with a “real” CNC that uses FluidNC. I am also pretty alone with Estlcam, but for most it’s Mach, or LinuxCNC etcpp., never FluidNC though.
I think its major advantage is to cater to beginners who want an easy interface that is touchscreen capable.