One RepRap Motherboard, Multiple RepRaps?

Maybe this has been asked, a quick search didn't provide much, but being new to the RepRap process, I was thinking. How many I/O's are being used? And would it be possible to theoretically control more than one RepRap Cartesian bot with one RepRap motherboard? Or is that level of multitasking too complicated for the ATMega?

Also, has anyone looked into the Illuminator X Machina as a potential controller for the RepRap?

The idea being, say you can't fork over enough time/money/blah for more than one controller, but you can manage to build a couple Bots? You could then make/sell/give away more parts at twice the speed to help fund additional projects.

But again, I'm still rather new to the RepRap movement, (and microcontroller programming in general). I understand that a potential stepper controller might be an issue, and so forth.

Anyway, that's just my idea for now.

This reminds me of the early 80s and the Inmos transputer arrays connected ~ back then they were 20-30MIPS each device
Here is a link. This looks like a nice idea to play with however the pricing is not so good for RepRap users at the moment.

I will have to find the original Inmos peliminary data book now.

On my Nascom 1 I used an Inmos high speed colour palete chip retrofitted to Pluto graphics card with stacked dRam (dram solderd ontop of Dram to add 4 additional colour planes) the data pins bent up and solderd with vero wire to the unused data lines. I disasembled the Pluto 8086 code in Eprom and removed all the xor and and functions to strip the upper four bits of the drwaing functions re-programed the Eprom to get an 8 Plane graphics card with 256 diffrent colours per graphics line.

Is technology becoming a little like fashion where designs are revived every 30 years or so..?

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Bodge It [reprap.org]
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BIQ Sanguinololu SD LCD board	BIQ Stepcon	BIQ Opto Endstop
BIQ Heater Block PCB	BIQ Extruder Peek clamp replacement	BIQ Huxley Seedling
BIQ Sanguinololu mounting	BIQ standalone Sanguinololu or Ramps mounting	Print It Stick It Cut it

My rep strap: [repstrapbertha.blogspot.com]

Buy the bits from B&Q pipestrap [diyrepstrap.blogspot.com]
How to Build a Darwin without any Rep Rap Parts [repstrapdarwin.blogspot.com]
Web Site [www.takeaway3dtech.com]

As the system stands I dont think controll of multiple RepRaps is easily achivable.

If a secondary xyz positioning controller was designed in a similar way to the extruder controller 2.2 it could make this idea a posibility by making use of the RS485 bus.

This would involve a fair ammount of software reorganization for how many users wanting more than one RepRap ~ it would also add to the overall hardware cost as well?

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Bodge It [reprap.org]
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BIQ Sanguinololu SD LCD board	BIQ Stepcon	BIQ Opto Endstop
BIQ Heater Block PCB	BIQ Extruder Peek clamp replacement	BIQ Huxley Seedling
BIQ Sanguinololu mounting	BIQ standalone Sanguinololu or Ramps mounting	Print It Stick It Cut it

My rep strap: [repstrapbertha.blogspot.com]

Buy the bits from B&Q pipestrap [diyrepstrap.blogspot.com]
How to Build a Darwin without any Rep Rap Parts [repstrapdarwin.blogspot.com]
Web Site [www.takeaway3dtech.com]

I think, while the above replies are completely correct that your idea won't really work, I think, with not terribly much work, you can run two identical bots, producing two identical parts, at the same time. Care would have to be taken to make sure that they stay in identical states, and you'd have to modify the firmware to talk to two extruders at once, but it should be completely possible... I think.
(The idea with *completely* identical states is to only need one set of optoendstops hooked up. It might be more reasonable to wire-or them instead.)