Would be nice, but is it compatible with the ‘keep the 5/16" nuts’ crowd? How many 10-year old shop computers have USB-C?
Doesn’t matter. We wouldn’t be using any USB-C speeds or power delivery. You can just use a USB-A to USB-C cable.
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Wish I had known about $Limits when I was setting up my ZenXY.
The 2 channel board from Bart doesn’t have LED’s and the FluidNC docs homing setup recommends using $Message/Level=Debug
Which…works…but it’s really noisy output with a lot of unnecessary information that makes it hard to spot exactly the bits you need when confirming if a switch is working or not.
When I setup my LR4 with a jackpot and limit switches I only glanced at the LED’s once or twice briefly and now never look at them…even if they were visible in the box I have the jackpot in the location behind the gantry means I’d have to stretch to see them. I feel like I wouldn’t miss LED’s on the jackpot.
But on the 2 axis board from Bart that doesn’t have the LED’s I did have issues getting my end stops/homing setup and was VERY glad that the optical end stops had LED’s on them as they helped immensely. If I only had to rely on output in fluidnc even with $limits it would have been much more difficult since my computer is on a different desk and trying to read the screen while triggering things would have been extremely frustrating.
Given how low cost LED’s are I have a hard time agreeing to removing them. Most of the time they’re not all that helpful. But in those situations where there are issues they’re VERY helpful for debugging. I just don’t think the savings are worth it in this case since they’re so small and the possible frustration of not having them is potentially so much higher.
I was going to weigh in on the integrated ESP question in the other thread but it closed before I had a chance…so at the risk of going off topic I’ll chime in on it here…but I’ll do so in the context of inputs at least 
And again - having just used a board that does have an integrated ESP and TMC’s (Barts 2 axis board) I’ll say I really liked it. I think for the vast majority of users it’s a far better approach that’s likely to result in fewer issues. It seems there are two main ways an ESP gets damaged:
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Plugging the ESP in wrong. Integrating it eliminates this possibility entirely.
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Pendant ESD issues.
#2 is the side that worries me. Since there doesn’t seem to be agreement on the best approach to resolving it. There are the interface boards Bart designed - but I’ve seen quite a bit of talk criticizing the protection they provide as inadequate. Though when I asked what was suggested instead the answer was basically “They’re better than nothing and there isn’t an agreed on best solution”
Personally I’d like to see the I/O hardened more since the pendant seems to be the most likely way to damage the board. And that’s just one example of I/O but a common one. It’s easy to say it’s the responsibility of the peripheral to provide protection…but it’s also risky if protection can be provided on the board.
I’d also point out that doing integrated ESP and and TMC’s could allow for the board to be more compact - or to make room for better connectors.
Oh and finally speaking of connectors. I really disliked the connectors used on the 2 axis board. They were too small to use crimp ferules on most connections and they’re annoying when connecting/disconnecting. I really much preferred the pin headers on the jackpot which allow me to plug/unplug a stepper or end stop in one tool free motion.
Having to undo 4s crews for each stepper was really annoying. There are similar headers that are removable - though as the old RAMPS boards showed they’re often bulky when specced for the proper amperage and people wind up using too small of a connector leading to issues.
I wound up adding aircraft/mic connectors on a case for my 2 axis board so I didn’t have to deal with those screw headers. I would have much rather avoided that extra connector / potential point of failure - but doing those tiny screws over and over when setting things up got really old FAST.
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It actually kinda makes it harder. All the stuff that is stacked up on the second layer needs to fit on the first layer. Getting rid of things like LED’s helps here.
This is where using your phone for a couple of minutes would solve that issue I would think. $Limits gives you everything you need to know, lights don’t actually even tell you if the inputs are working they are mostly a separate circuit. In the end I think they are not very useful, but not very expensive. We will see if there is room or not.
Interesting, I thought that was solved with his board. I will make a note of that.
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There was a lot of discussion with @jono035 on this topic, when you’re ready to cover that topic we should be sure to tag that thread to get inputs.
Edit: I will note that since I switched to using the Tindie boards, I have not blown up any pendants or ESP-32s.
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Thank you for the link.
I tested it out and I think $Limits is very useful.
On the topic of LEDs, they were nice for the first time I powered up the Jackpot to have proof of life but I have not had much need for them since
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Okay first post updated, on to the next subject in a new thread.