Would some of the control board’s designed for CNC machines work? Smoothieboard?
Smoothieboard (from FPGA topic)
Hi Rich – One of the smoothieboards is designed to have an unspecified FPGA on it to “handle step generation at insane rates and new features”. Those boards look excellent for their purpose, but not directly related to FPGAs. On the other hand, driving IO at very crisp clock speeds is exactly (one of the things) FPGAs are good at, and if that’s your interest, my getting-started workshop might be a good first step. If you’re already passt your first FPGA steps, my workshop is too basic. All best, J.
Sorry, my post was meant to be a reply to Toby. I probably shouldn’t have derailed your thread.
Let’s not derail, there is a serious conversation to be had another time. But I should say thanks for pointing me to Smoothieboard. It’s something I hadn’t seen, and it’s mbed based which is a platform I like.
HI RIch and Toby – I’ve moved to a new thread – as you say, this is a good subject but off-topic. All best, J.
You probably know as much about it as I do now! I have a laser cutter that would probably benefit from a new control board and I’m wondering if the Smoothieboard would be a good choice.
It’s just one of too many projects I have on the go atm though.
Quite neatly, the fact that the FPGA featured board is a) so experimental it’s still in major develeopment and b) is what they say will handle extreme speed, suggests why I hadn’t found CNC stuff to be a help =]
Hi Rich … that basic smoothieboard looks pretty much designed for exactly your task! Looks splendid at first glance, 150 euro or so. J.