Closer…The Fit board, not too lean not too fat. just right.
I agree.
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Having the jackpot simple, and the jackpot hacker makes a lot of sense to me. I am pretty convinced the sale would quickly swing to the simple though.
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I really like that idea. I did suggest an included ESP before during the creation of the first Jackpot and am saying it again: Do it! 
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Maybe even drop the 6th driver. A shock, I know, but if we are talking purpose built for the most common case and expansion port for some of the other cases, then I’d say five drivers fits that spirit.
I could series wire the Y axis and square manually if I ever get the rotary axis going. Kelly could series wire the X axis. Idex needs a bunch more stuff for SSR etc so it’s simply outside the scope (plus it’s not yet in FluidNC anyway).
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I am using the seventh input for a tool setter.
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I remixed a slit in the top of your box lid, which lets me see the LEDs even when the box is closed up.
Like having the backup. We have had people with a bad driver move to the 6th position. I am not sure how or why those messed up but in the case of integrated drivers not scraping the entire board when you could just pop on a btt driver is comforting. I also don’t think it would save us any pins.
After the initial check to see if it is wired correctly, do you use them for anything or just show them because they are there? Lights just say a switch works, $limits, tells you if the switch works and what switch it thinks it is.
You use a toolsetter and a surface probe? You should not need both. For most people, I image the ease of a surface probe is much easier to deal with than a toolsetter.
You built a rats nest esp controller? That is great! I thought about it, but didnt dare after getting scolded for the bad wire job blowing out that
octopus board…
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Occasionally, if I have any homing issue, it’s an easy first thing to check before physically investigating and inspecting to see if I’ve thrown a blade or what. So it’s come in handy a few times. As far as mods go, it didn’t cost anything, and is pretty easy timewise. All you have to do is be neat with your wires so they’re not in the way. So not frequent benefit but also little effort.
$limits is a neat command to know about.
How often are we talking?
I literally only look at them once, if that and box it up.
Even testing the boards before shipping I used $limits
Will one of your jackpot-next threads be about design-for-test features?
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I feel the same way about that extra input. I know of one or two cases where someone had an issue with one of the inputs and it was resolved by swapping to a different one. The extra input is also what I was using for that diag pin stuff. I could have used one from the expansion slot though but I like leaving that available.
I believe that. I also view it as a beginner friendly. The combo of cost and approachability is 100% how I landed here. The biggest driver I see for the Jackpot over other FluidNC boards is that there is a Lowrider and an MPCNC with instructions on how to use this board to have your own CNC. For a new to CNC person, why not get that board. I see that as a major challenge with Bart’s boards. They have a board and end up trying to support a ton of machines (or support a bunch of cheap boards for which they get no support). I know enough of what I’m doing now to use a different board if it had specific features I wanted, but that wasn’t the case from the start.
On one hand, those LEDs on the inputs are unnecessary but at the same time, that was really helpful during initial setup. It was exciting when I was building my LR3 and first hooked up the endstop switches and could make those LEDs change. It was a real encouragement to continue and validation that I’m doing something right. At the same time, I don’t look at them at all unless I’m trying to fix/mess with something. I could certainly do without them, but they are convenient.
If you wanted to make the cheapest board possible, for a yellow brick road build, you don’t need the MOSFET or 5V out sections. You don’t even need the expansion slot. You don’t need that 7th input (or the LEDs) or the 6th driver. I’m kind of a weird user but I’m not using any of those (at least at the moment) on my Lowrider.
It’s interesting trying to balance cost with necessary features and nice to have features.
Oh wow. I’ve never tried $limits until now. That’s pretty cool.
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Only maybe two or three times since I built the v4. Certainly not enough of anything to even consider it impacting whatever plans you’re making. I was just pointing out that there was a cheaper way to have easy access to those LEDs without having to do the fiber optic trick.
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Such as? I feel odd about test points. If there was something I needed to know that did not hit a pin directly I would add a test point for sure but most of the issues I have seen in the past with things like the knock of Ramps boards is bad pin soldering. So testing it as used makes the most sense to me.
With all that said I have almost zero experience with testing anything other than Marlin based boards.
So it seems like keeping the extra input is a good idea, popping out at least one pin (if not all) pre-diode is legit.
In this we also got the idea to possibly share the module port pins with something else.
The indicator LED’s are a question mark, $Limits is a fantastic idea for beginners to get over the fear of the terminal.
The main question left is The Schottky Diodes diode approach is safe enough, no reason to optocouple? - With my limited knowledge that does seem like overkill, if you are playing with high voltage connections you really need to be careful.
As one of those beginners, I would like to learn more about using the terminal.
Is the purpose of $Limits to show if the limit switches are currently open/closed or does it go further?
The FluidNC wiki (Command and Settings) was slim on details for the command.
Just try it out, drastic improvement from the Marlin single check/poll. This is live feedback.
It tells you what input is triggered or not and keeps refreshing so you can do one or multiple, even shows the probe.
Funny I am not sure what happens with the spare. I will try that in a minute.
Here is where that link should point, Config Homing and Limit Switches | Wiki.js
Let me see if I can get that edit in real quick, if I still have permission.
I think related to inputs, if you are going to do an integrated ESP32 chip, we will need a USB port and maybe a USB serial chip / other chip depending on which ESP32 you use so we can program
Yeah, that would all be required if the esp32 gets integrated. I do have a fully working and verified layout to work from…going to USB-C would be preferred though.
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