Fully Programmable Gate Array. Basically a whole mess of logic gates you can organize any way you want…I think…
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I tried it with the firmware and TFT matching at both 250,000 and 115,200 for baud rates. At 250, the TFT works, but the LCD mode gives a TMC connection error. At 115, the TFT gives no printer attached, but the LCD mode gives no errors.
The firmware for the TFT and for the board do have to match, correct?
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The tmc connection error means it is talking to the board. So leave it at 250k. As is often the case, you’ve fixed one problem, to discover a larger one. The error is just saying the board can’t talk to one or more drivers.
You can check from a computer what the response to M119 is. To see if it is one driver or all of them complaining. Maybe there is a problem with your power wiring or maybe one isnt installed.
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Awesome. Thank you. I’ll give it some more tries after work.
I have tried it both with USB power and with wall power, and I get the same result. I have some extra drivers I’ll swap in and try that too.
I really do appreciate the help. The mechanical parts make all the sense in the world to me. The angry electrons whizzing about on the grid often do not.
Yup though i have heard some people call them Field Programmable Gate Arrays too. And its basicly a chip that you can reprogram the hardware. Like having a trillion relays that you can wite up however you want, and they can process data as fast as it takes to turn on each relay(propagation delay). They are used in high speed plc controllers (AB logic800s use a spartan 3 fpga) and to develop mass production chips like the ones RPis use as their brain.
Yeah I would say an fpga is overkill for a hobby application. But it is pretty standard in similar commercial and industrial applications. It would certainly opens up a lot of possibilities.
This is basically how all industrial automation systems work and have worked for a long time (if you have a HMI hooked up to an Allen Bradley plc to control a machine it is doing the same thing) the idea of using microcontrollers in place of a logic controller is relatively new and only came about with the advent of high speed microcontrollers.
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Overkill? Maybe. Still cheaper than a RAMBo.
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Love this new design, very interested in watching your progress once you’ve got the electronics sorted. I’ve been following lots of plasma builds and really interested in your different axis systems. I’m almost finished a mostly standard lowrider cnc router and planning on a plasma build next.
I’d be keen to get a copy of your step files for the design if that offer is still there?
Thanks! I haven’t had much of any time to work on it lately. Work has been kicking my butt.
However, I’m hoping to get back at it shortly, and I’ll be happy to share the STEP files, and the Marlin configuration I come up with once they’re finalized.
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