I’ve been out of the CNC game for awhile. I have an LR3 that’s mostly been sitting for the last 3 years. Recently decided I wanted to get it working again and currently it’s in a semi-usable state with an SKR Mini E3 V3. I’m lucky I still had the old firmware.bin because I don’t feel like wrestling with compiling Marlin again 3+ years later. But there are currently no endstops and I have a z touch probe I’d like to get integrated eventually and assume that’ll involve firmware changes.
I saw L4 come out and am contemplating a rebuild so I can incorporate that stuff this time around and maybe benefit from increased rigidity (side note: I’d love if someone could point me to release notes for L4 so I can fully understand what I’d gain from upgrading over L3?). I’m thinking of going with Klipper + FluidNC since that seems to be the common path the community has taken recently over Marlin. And I really like the dynamic config tweaking compared to Marlin (I’ve run Klipper before with Mainsail on Ender 3 and loved it).
I also have a Rambo 1.4 board from an old MPCNC build. So basically I’m contemplating which of these controllers I should use and what the relative advantages/disadvantages of them are?
Here are the ones I know about:
SKR Mini E3 V3
Pros
It’s currently working in my L3
It has TMC2209 steppers (though the noise doesn’t matter because I have a nice enclosure)
It has 32 bit support (I’m on the fence about this for reasons below)
Cons
Has multiplexed z axes wired parallel from factory so z is underpowered
Currently runs Marlin and I don’t want to recompile to add things like z probe or make tweaks
Rambo 1.4
Pros
I have it already
Seems like this is a more “supported” board by the community
Cons
Not 32 bit (does this matter if I have a raspberry pi 3b+ to run klipper though? Thought that turned the board into a dumb gcode executor)
Also has multiplexed z
No tmc2209 steppers (I don’t care about noise though - but are there other reasons to care?)
Jackpot
Pros
Community endorsed board for L4
32 bit (does it matter in my case?)
TMC2209 stepper drivers (I don’t care about noise, are there other advantages?)
6 independent motor drivers (does it matter in my case?)
AP mode looks freaking dope since I have crap WiFi in my garage (but does this matter if I get Klipper running? Can’t I put raspberry pi into access point mode somehow?)
Cons
Yet Another Control Board
Yet Another Enclosure
Not used outside of this community
So yeah, I’m really interested to hear your thoughts on which board to go with for an L4 conversion. I’m mostly interested in either wrong assumptions I’ve made above or gaps in my knowledge about relative pros/cons of each board.
As someone that uses klipper currently, I can say that it works fine most of the time, however I have been considering getting a jackpot board from the V1E store to give fluidnc a try. I choose klipper because I already had a motherboard that ran it, so I didn’t have to purchase anything new, and having used it on 3D printers for several years prior, I was very familiar with it, so firmware changes and things like that are a breeze.
However, there are some downsides, as klipper is not really made for CNC work. My biggest gripe is jogging the machine, which requires pressing move commands constantly rather than being able to use a joystick/game controller/etc. Also trying to set your origin when creating a work piece can be a bit difficult and takes some learning.
As far as I can tell, fluidnc has a similar setup to klipper in terms of having a web interface, which is nice.
I would also love to hear other peoples opinions who have experience with fluidnc on some of the benefits of it when compared to klipper/marlin.
Rambo/Marlin used to be king around here. But the jackpot is more CNC focused and I think most future work will be done with the jackpot. I would recommend that.
Rambo/Klipper hasn’t ever seen mich support. Most klipper users don’t mind because they can handle the configuration and bugfixing themselves.
Skr mini has also never had much support. Especially with klipper.
The extra drivers on Z isn’t about having more power. It is about dual endstops. Each motor can be moved independently. So the firmware can touch each endstop to make the gantry square after startup.
32 bit doesn’t matter much for milling. But advanced features like AP mode definitely matters. The pi can handle a lot of that. But it comes with the esp32 without another computer to update and maintain.
