RAMPS 1.4.2 fork: RD3D v1.0 (6 steppers, 24v, Due)

.... however, these "first copies" are far away from being reliable or of consistent quality -- these "micro-companies" use what they just have or even "fake" components, such as re-encapsulated 6V capacitors, where actually 16Volt types would be required

In the end, angry "customers" ran into you with: "why you've designed such scrap!" -- because the cloners boldly use your web pages for info and reference for the clones

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Quote
VDX
.... however, these "first copies" are far away from being reliable or of consistent quality -- these "micro-companies" use what they just have or even "fake" components, such as re-encapsulated 6V capacitors, where actually 16Volt types would be required

In the end, angry "customers" ran into you with: "why you've designed such scrap!" -- because the cloners boldly use your web pages for info and reference for the clones

yeahhh i've seen how the smoothie team got really pissed off at MKS, who were trying but really not trying very well (and going through design and manufacturing problems), and using the smoothieware name without paying them, crediting them, and then by accidental association expecting them to pick up the support bill for all their customers.

what i can suggest is: if there's fraud or bad manufacturing, stick that right on the page, right at the top, with a huge warning about them being fraudulent suppliers, and if they're unambiguously identifiable, list their contact details so that people know to avoid them. not least: when yet more fraudulent suppliers begin cloning and start referring to the page they might think twice. that's if they can read english. but... if they can read enough english to identify the gerber files and board designs, they can certainly read enough english which gives the name of their company and other companies that have committed fraud.

the melzi page has a warning about identifying which boards are unreliable: after buying one by mistake i just updated the page indicating the fact that the boards register a full 10C less than they should... but *only* when the heated bed is switched on (!)... and whilst it hasn't gone in the bin i am letting people know.

then, you can use the *bad* manufacturers as a way to say "if you want properly QA'd hardware you can buy it from me and unlike the fraudulent suppliers i will actually make some money and we will have a contract of sale and associated warranty"

i've been dealing with software libre and hardware for 25 years now, vdx. sometimes i go up the f*******g wall in frustration but i've been through this a lot, dealing with public interaction. blunt honesty - shining a light on people's activities - works as both a way to deter fraudsters and also encourage genuine people.

Quote
lkcl

Quote
VDX
.... however, these "first copies" are far away from being reliable or of consistent quality -- these "micro-companies" use what they just have or even "fake" components, such as re-encapsulated 6V capacitors, where actually 16Volt types would be required

In the end, angry "customers" ran into you with: "why you've designed such scrap!" -- because the cloners boldly use your web pages for info and reference for the clones

what i can suggest is: if there's fraud or bad manufacturing, stick that right on the page, right at the top, with a huge warning about them being fraudulent suppliers,

bottom line: _you_ have control over the wiki, and can lock them out if they start editing it to remove the fact that they've committed fraud.

... it's not this simple -- many of the involved companies aren't "real", but more a bunch of casual connected individuals, changing their "company" names or adresses by will or occasion pretty easy, so wouldn't be affected or hurt seriously by our "counter-measures"

Even one of our "official partners" for SMD-pick'n'place machines is not a "normal company", but a group of three ingenieurs, working at three different companies and doing their developmen and (international!) service for the machines in their spare time

So don't expect, that you can cope or fight with this sort of market structures, as you know it from the European or American markets ...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2017 09:09AM by VDX.

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Quote
VDX
... it's not this simple -- many of the involved companies aren't "real", but more a bunch of casual connected individuals, changing their "company" names or adresses by will or occasion pretty easy, so wouldn't be affected or hurt seriously by our "counter-measures"

Even one of our "official partners" for SMD-pick'n'place machines is not a "normal company", but a group of three ingenieurs, working at three different companies and doing their developmen and (international!) service for the machines in their spare time

So don't expect, that you can cope or fight with this sort of market structures, as you know it from the European or American markets ...

i'm actually based in taiwan, now - i've been tracking china component sourcing and finding legitimate factories and suppliers for six years now. i've heard some hilarious horror-stories of suppliers putting 10uF capacitors into 100uF cases, smaller capacity 2.5in IDE drives inside 3.5in cases marked with a larger capacity: really quite ingenious.

the best one though is when people don't use a chinese national citizen to check the exported goods to make sure that the shipping container isn't interfered with as it's loaded onto the docks. so you get a great box of bricks. you try to take them to court only to find that as you're not a chinese national you can't even *apply* to the courts. they tried that with a friend i know: he didn't bother with the courts, he just went to the factory owner and kicked his desk over. guy got up off the floor, went over to the safe and handed him a wad of cash. said thank you and left.

anyway: yeah, if they're changing company names, then all you can do is put a warning "watch out for fraudulent chinese manufacturers who regularly and consistently change company names so as to be able to continue to persistently commit fraud: please buy from known-reputable sources only, if you don't heed this warning you get what you deserve, sorry"

basically _tell_ people exactly what's happening. if there's a case / example which hasn't been discussed, make sure that's documented as well. the exact scenario doesn't matter what it is: documenting it publicly so that people at least are aware it's happening.

... my "tactics" are different (and some of my friends do it similarly) - I'm developing and distributing my "critical" projects only locally and without too much traffic ... so it's mostly "under the radar" or not accessible from outsiders

So actually only infos and projects, which aren't essential or critical or worth to do it for a life, are posted or blogged open - what's a shame in face of the Open-Source communities

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Quote
VDX
... my "tactics" are different (and some of my friends do it similarly) - I'm developing and distributing my "critical" projects only locally and without too much traffic ... so it's mostly "under the radar" or not accessible from outsiders

So actually only infos and projects, which aren't essential or critical or worth to do it for a life, are posted or blogged open - what's a shame in face of the Open-Source communities

... which, sadly, means that people can't participate, or see what's going on, they can't learn from it (as they are here), they can't offer advice which would potentially stop you from making mistakes... all the things that really *make* this community... makes it an *open* community... all of that is completely gone.

.... y'know... a few months back i rejoined the reprap forum after a break of two years. i got the feeling that something had drastically changed: that it had become a "ghost town", and i couldn't work out why.

in effect, the criminals have been allowed to destroy this community. there has to be another solution. you can't possibly let them "win".

damnit, damnit this is why i can't find the firmware source code for the newly-developed filament width sensor concepts, and am having to replicate the designs as GPLv3+. frick. i really can't stand wasting my time replicating pre-existing code - certainly not when i have such bad RSI again.

ok. i'm going over to Shenzhen for the Maker Faire on the 10th-12th, but there's a makerspace meetup a couple days before. what i will do is, ask their advice. there might be a way to deal with these criminals locally. hopefully they're not part of one of the chinese triads: that would make things... awkward. anyway i'll see what i can find out.

Quote
lkcl
in effect, the criminals have been allowed to destroy this community. there has to be another solution. you can't possibly let them "win".

... which other solution? - I'm searching for since maybe 20+ years now (since my first "cloning/IP-stealing" issues).

Tis is an extreme "unbalanced" situation - the originators are single individuals, acting in public ... while the "criminals" are an unmanageable mob, doing their work out of sight ...

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Quote
VDX
... which other solution? - I'm searching for since maybe 20+ years now (since my first "cloning/IP-stealing" issues).

i hear ya: on one libre project i worked on (Exchange 5.5 reverse-engineering, back in 2000 to 2003), i had people in the software libre community (westerners) track every advance that i made, implementing it themselves... removing all mention of the fact that they got the information directly from me. four months work, totally unpaid, absolutely no financial gain or possibility of financial gain whatsoever thanks to those f****rs spongeing off the back of my efforts. end result: i don't do reverse-engineering as part of software libre projects any more, so that f****rs like that get to learn that it's not ok to sponge off of other people's time.

so... yeah, i hear ya.

one of the realities of open hardware/software is: people copy it. that's the whole point. the *implicit* side is that they're also supposed to share and communicate... but the license does not *require* that they do that.

so, there *will* be people who will take what you design, and sell it. that's just the reality of an open / community-based design process. some of them will say hello, help you out, and even become a useful and valuable part of the community. some will just sponge off your efforts (i have a friend who spent 2 years getting the AR9271 firmware released as free software... now there are "competitors" spongeing off of his work - more on this in a bit).

on a number of software libre projects (and now the EOMA68 hardware one) i've used the fact that i was the lead developer - and the associated high page-rank of the main project page - not as a loss-leader or anything but as a way to gain prominence such that if people searched for certain keywords they would find that i'm the one with the expertise, and they'd pay me to help them out. i made - make - sure that i went - go - to conferences, so that people get to know that i know what i'm talking about. and also as a way to again increase the page-rank of the main project page.

hardware has a certain advantage that it's harder to copy... except now we have china fraudulent sellers thrown into the mix, thanks to the hardware being copied being extremely popular, and well-known: it's worthwhile their time to defraud people.

with my friend chris, the problems come for people in the software libre community if they try to buy from his competitors. not immediately, and not directly, but indirectly. the thing is that his spongeing competitors - the ones that really don't have any expertise and only know that they should "undercut" his prices - have absolutely no intention of working towards ensuring that the firmware for FUTURE products is just as libre.

to explain that: the AR9271 (product code name TP150N) is an 802.11n USB-based WIFI chipset. its firmware was not libre, but chris knew one of the developers at atheros. they worked together, walking management and the legal team through the process of releasing the firmware. then qualcomm took over, fired everybody, and he has no way in to qualcomm.

now, this was a few years back: we now have 802.11ac (totally proprietary) and ATH10K (again totally proprietary) which was developed at qualcomm by a team that completely fails to understand the benefits of software libre. bugs, some of them severe, lack of features (you can use the AR9271 for WIFI Mesh networking for example but you certainly can't do that for any 802.11ac chipset), and much more: all gone.

has chris given up? no of course not. is he still searching and investigating? of course he is (he's investigating many leads, including with mediatek on one of their ac chipsets). does it take time and cost money? yes, it does. ... do you think his COMPETITORS are bothering to spend that time and money? of course they aren't.

the point is: if you don't buy from chris you're NOT FUNDING HIS EFFORTS TO GET LIBRE FIRMWARE FOR FUTURE CHIPSETS.. and are therefore shooting yourself in the foot. you'll be able to get *older* products only... right up to the point where they're end-of-lifed.

is there any *obligation* here to buy (from chris, or from the prominent developers on here)? of course not. quotes normal quote business is based around the concept of entrapment. you FORCE people to come exclusively to you, you don't give them the source code so that they can quotes wander off to other suppliers quotes.

i don't like entrapment. i actually find it incredibly distasteful, and highly unethical. not to mention, if i am providing a service for which i am being financially rewarded, i would like people to *always* be happy with that service, no matter what. and if i am unavailable, then as a single-point-of-failure if i have provided them with an exclusive (entrapment-designed) service, they're screwed. thus to fulfil the obligations that i feel that i have towards them, i *need* them to have the full source code, no matter the consequences or possibility that people may sponge off of my efforts as they have done repeatedly in the past.

is that obligation more important to me than stopping people spongeing off of my efforts? yes it is. why? because it's ethical to do so, and it would be unethical not to do so. ethics are something that, for me, is not negotiable. something is either ethical or it is not ethical: there is no "grey area" when it comes to ethical decision-making. it may be complex to *analyse*, and there may be "grey areas" - many unknowns within the *analysis* - but as to whether a decision is ethical or not ethical, you cannot have a compromise on an ethical act.

so perhaps, before considering answering the question, can i ask you one (or... several, all of which are basically the same question): why are you here? why are you part of this community, why do you do open hardware, what's your goal / purpose in being on this forum and on making open reprap hardware?

... yes, I had similar experiences -- and not only limited to "Chinese cloners" but too with "borrowing" my ideas and IP's for comercial solutions here in Europe too without any mention of my originates or any feedback ... had this even with some collaborative/cooperation projects, meant for developing for a group of firms, while one of the partners used the information for his own "closed" developments, published shortly after expiring of the NDA's

So, after 2006 I've changed my tactics (and day-jobs) drastically and started to share infos, hints and developments in greater or smaller group-developments, while earning my money with other jobs (sometimes related too, sometimes not).

One of them is the RepRap-Project, which I've joined in 2007, others are based around other additive techniques ... but most of the activity is around laser-applications.

Try to google for "laser" and "VDX"

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Quote
VDX
... yes, I had similar experiences -- and not only limited to "Chinese cloners" but too with "borrowing" my ideas and IP's for comercial solutions here in Europe too without any mention of my originates or any feedback ... had this even with some collaborative/cooperation projects, meant for developing for a group of firms, while one of the partners used the information for his own "closed" developments, published shortly after expiring of the NDA's

So, after 2006 I've changed my tactics (and day-jobs) drastically and started to share infos, hints and developments in greater or smaller group-developments, while earning my money with other jobs (sometimes related too, sometimes not).

One of them is the RepRap-Project, which I've joined in 2007, others are based around other additive techniques ... but most of the activity is around laser-applications.

Try to google for "laser" and "VDX"

i realised i owe you a reply, here, if nothing else but just to acknowledge the work you've been doing, vdx, which is amazing, and i think that's really the key, to always stay ahead; "new" is what's desirable, that's the marketable skill.

... not exactly "marketable" - but it's one of several different methodes to initiate desirable developments

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Quote
VDX
... not exactly "marketable" - but it's one of several different methodes to initiate desirable developments

yehyeh. well it's a trick i learned along the way. nophead, dc42, many others, they're all extremely well-known because they write really, really comprehensive documentation and online explanations of the developments they're working on. that helps people... it gets them well-known... so people buy from them.

my friend phil, he *specifically* picked the mendel 90 because of the hydraraptor posts that chris (nophead) made, it contained actual sensible and sound engineering advice that phil could read up on. nophead encountered problems, described them well (when nobody else was doing that), came up with a solution, described that, implemented it, and confirmed that it worked.

that's the kind of thing that makes people want to support people, but more than that it means that other people will contact them for engineering contracts / design / solutions advice.

did you know that there's an entrepreneur who formed a huge software company, he said he REFUSES to hire computer science graduates. instead, he hires ENGLISH LANGUAGE graduates... and trains them to program. the reason? people who have studied the english language are BETTER AT COMMUNICATING! so they work better in teams, they write better - clearer - documentation, and so on.

interesting, ehn?

anyway my point is: if we go "underground", that's it: it's game over.

IT. people are notoriously bad communicators... myself included. but retraining ENGLISH LANGUAGE graduates, its just sick and depraved!

Quote
lkcl
...
anyway my point is: if we go "underground", that's it: it's game over.

... no, it shouldn't be that dramatic -- IIRC when starting the RepRap project, we were around 10 to 15 individuals, located all over the world.

Now, with the "localized teams", we're even more per team - so enough potential to get it rolling on.

And with the Maker-fairs as exchange/communicating platforms there should be enough interaction, to get the information and know-how spreaded

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Quote
VDX

Quote
lkcl
...
anyway my point is: if we go "underground", that's it: it's game over.

... no, it shouldn't be that dramatic -- IIRC when starting the RepRap project, we were around 10 to 15 individuals, located all over the world.

Now, with the "localized teams", we're even more per team - so enough potential to get it rolling on.

And with the Maker-fairs as exchange/communicating platforms there should be enough interaction, to get the information and know-how spreaded

... except... where are the maker faire open public forums, with full archives of the public discussions? where are their open access IRC channels? where are the publicly editable wikis? i want to be able to search their knowledge databases and communicate directly with them from anywhere in the world - how can i do that?

i live in taiwan - at the moment - i cannot travel to all the maker faires where they are based, can i?

i cannot go to their meetings.

i do not even know where or when their meetings are.

plus that is on *their* time schedule.... once a week? once a month?

it is private cliques, vdx. it's great for those particular groups, but the spread and propagation of information is secret, slow, and may end up being.... wrong.

for the development of the STL47o arduino-compatible board, it took me under 10 days to develop the PCB layout, thanks to the help and input of two forums where i had NEVER MET the people on there before, i literally joined stm32duino and arduino.cc SPECIFICALLY for the purposes of developing the board.

random people i had never met got online and... helped me out, to avoid making costly mistakes.

can you GUARANTEE that these private makerspaces have the SPECIFIC knowledge RIGHT NOW to avoid making costly design mistakes in such a small timeframe?

i have done the same thing with three maybe five different boards over the past couple of months. look at the amount of input and help people gave on this board! i have no idea who these people are, and the chances of actually ever meeting them are extremely slim, yet they are fascinated and entertained enough to want to just... pitch in.... because it's fun to do so.

the reason why i need people's help - from all over the world not just from a select private group - is because i'm not *actually* an electrical engineer. i've been fascinated by electronics since aged 10 but i didn't actually train as one. i *know* i will make mistakes, but i simply cannot go travelling about the world to meet people, and that's why open forums are so very very important to me.

here's the thing: i am not the only person in this type of situation. the "makerspace" private (secret) communication development model basically excludes me and other people like me, unfortunately. it may work very well, but people like me are totally excluded.

Quote

yehyeh. well it's a trick i learned along the way. nophead, dc42, many others, they're all extremely well-known because they write really, really comprehensive documentation and online explanations of the developments they're working on. that helps people... it gets them well-known... so people buy from them.

I can fully agree with you, but I've also noticed it got pretty quiet here, since dc42 started his own forum. It was meant for Duet support only, which is good.
But more and more good ideas which aren't exclusively dedicated to Duet & RRF get published and discussed there. Some accidently make their way back here, but I feel RepRap forum has lost a few experts.

... but this is the situation, when OpenSource information is used to start "business models" - some are brave enough to cooperate with the community ... at least in the beginning ...

But in most occasions they went "closed" after some time and cut the community out to protect their business against competitors and "cloners"

Are you aware of the "success-story" of Makerbot?

Most of this "lost experts" have reasons, why they leave the communities ...

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Quote
VDX
... but this is the situation, when OpenSource information is used to start "business models" - some are brave enough to cooperate with the community ... at least in the beginning ...

But in most occasions they went "closed" after some time and cut the community out to protect their business against competitors and "cloners"

Are you aware of the "success-story" of Makerbot?

Most of this "lost experts" have reasons, why they leave the communities ...

There are still companies and groups such as Duet3D, Prusa, Lulzbot and the Smoothie folks who are committed to open source. I hang around here as well as on Duet3D and a few other places.

---

Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

I'll agree that since getting interested and involved with fdm printing I've been surprised at the slow pace of discussion on these forms and the stale pace of innovation. I'd think the clone market, lowering the barrier of entry would at least keep a constant influx of new people and potentially new ideas.

That is clearly not the case, for me, I've been inspired to start studying MCU programming. Of course that doesn't get me engaged in discussions much at my current skill level. However I believe in open source and I want to find ways to give back to the community I've learned so much from by making a meaningful contribution to it.

I know I can't be the only person interested in doing so either. The community just seems very fragmented right now and it is sad.

Quote
VDX
Are you aware of the "success-story" of Makerbot?

yes - the f*****rs. i heard the story first from wim, he is a... backer / angel investor of open / libre projects. he was their first customer, ordered 10 of their very first printer cash up-front (so that they could actually buy the materials!). now he is very embarrassed by their betrayal. and, interestingly, look what's happening there: the engineers know that the founders stole ideas - published prior art - and patented them. so what happens is, they self-sabotage. not deliberately, but the evidence speaks for itself: they keep continuously designing products that have design flaws.

Quote
dc42
...
There are still companies and groups such as Duet3D, Prusa, Lulzbot and the Smoothie folks who are committed to open source. I hang around here as well as on Duet3D and a few other places.

... yes, there are - and (in a certain way) me too

But this is the timespan I've meant with "... at least in the beginning ..." -- I'm active in this area since maybe 30 years now ... and seen more than enough friends, groups and companies changing their basis and behaviour over time or by changing ownerships

Another "bad habit" of larger companies is buying up competitors or interesting technologies - there were many chances for "community-driven development" and innovations, which were absorbed by other companies ... and either never heard from them again ... or found "repacked" in pretty costly comercial products, so out of reach for DIY or hobby communities

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Quote
lkcl

Quote
VDX
Are you aware of the "success-story" of Makerbot?

yes - the f*****rs. i heard the story first from wim, he is a... backer / angel investor of open / libre projects. he was their first customer, ordered 10 of their very first printer cash up-front (so that they could actually buy the materials!). now he is very embarrassed by their betrayal. and, interestingly, look what's happening there: the engineers know that the founders stole ideas - published prior art - and patented them. so what happens is, they self-sabotage. not deliberately, but the evidence speaks for itself: they keep continuously designing products that have design flaws.

... but this wasn't the full story! - Zach Smith developed the first versions of RepRap-electronics up to Gen3 ... then, together with Bre Pettis, he started their "comercial" route with a promise to cooperate with the community (what he did for at least 1 year) ... then Bre rearranged it to "closed", found more money and "started big" with launching Thingiverse ... sourced even more money ... dismissed Zach ... "upped" the value of Makerbot even more ... and last sold it to Stratasys ...

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Quote
VDX
... but this wasn't the full story! - Zach Smith developed the first versions of RepRap-electronics up to Gen3 ... then, together with Bre Pettis, he started their "comercial" route with a promise to cooperate with the community (what he did for at least 1 year) ... then Bre rearranged it to "closed", found more money and "started big" with launching Thingiverse ... sourced even more money ... dismissed Zach ... "upped" the value of Makerbot even more ... and last sold it to Stratasys ...

iinteresting.... y'know, a friend explained to me that when people come in to money it allows them to be more... of themselves. that's true regardless of whether they have a tendency towards doing "good" things or "bad" things (there are no "good" or "bad" people).

Quote
dc42
There are still companies and groups such as Duet3D, Prusa, Lulzbot and the Smoothie folks who are committed to open source. I hang around here as well as on Duet3D and a few other places.

appreciated, dave.

Quote
dc42
There are still companies and groups such as Duet3D, Prusa, Lulzbot and the Smoothie folks who are committed to open source.

Not sure wether they're committed to Open Source ... or more to the success of their companies, taking the Open Source badge as a marketing item.

Prusa and Lulzbot pretty much removed them selfs from the RepRap community and Duet3D, Smoothie are, sorry, well known for their pretty aggressive "recommendations" of their own products strongly in favor of anything else.

Seeing Open Source as a marketing and communications asset of a commercial enterprise matches much better what I observe than when I try to see community contributions and collaboration.

---

Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

... so, as much as i am reluctant to distract this conversation onto the topic of development, as you're aware i'm in a bit of a rush to get things ready for Shenzhen Maker Faire 2017 in under 3 weeks time, so i've prepared 3 extra boards, just sent off to the factory, and also the components for the other... errr... three i think... arrived this morning.

the first new one is a diff-ir sensor board (yes, with many many apologies to dc42, it's GPLv3+ licensed and... it's effectively a reimplementation of the board that you designed. luckily it's... GPLv3+ licensed quite deliberately so that you could consider selling it and make a little bit more profit on it than the one you currently sell). i picked the 20-pin TSOP STM8S003F6P6 - it's a *$0.24* processor (!!) where the ATTINY48 is.... something mad like $1.20. the downside: they're not really that well-known. however i've learned a few things about Atmel and i can't really endorse their processors or give them money, so ST it is... even though their software support is a bit of a mess.

for some form of future board (i noticed on the article you wrote, dc42 that people really wanted an on-board temperature sensor, or measurement of the hot-end and control over the fan), there are, amazingly, 4 pins spare. it's a 16x20 PCB, and in theory could be done entirely SMT including the 4x2 connector. that has some big advantages: no through-hole components poking out which could short-circuit if they poke through the kapton tape, or take up extra space on the back of the board in really really space-constrained scenarios).



the next one is a 45 / 0 / -45 filament width sensor, suitable for 1.75mm filament (if you want the 3 measurements). the boards that i found... the damn things were all proprietary licenses (the creative commons NON-COMMERCIAL license is... a proprietary license). i reimplemented it as GPLv3+. it still uses the same TSL1401CL - this is marked "not recommended for new designs" but the sensors - which are horrendously priced @ $7 - are still commonly available. they're also 400dpi whereas the (digital output) one that's replacing it is only 300dpi. the wiki page is going up here: [reprap.org]

again, same ridiculously-low-cost STM8. the proprietary license REALLY pisses me off as it means having to reimplement not only the sensor PCB but also the entire firmware AND the 3D-printed parts. *sigh*. some help there really appreciated.



the third one is an A4982 (because it's 2A and has an exposed pad) dual-stepper board.... with... (you'll be getting the general theme by now... ) an STM8S003 wikie page [reprap.org]

this is where it gets particularly interesting to have such a low-cost MCU on-board. i looked at how digipots are being used to generate a VREF, i looked up the price and went holy s*** that's insane, no way i'm making a PCB with that on it, what can i do instead, i know, there's a trick where you can generate a stable voltage from a PWM using an RC circuit, i can use that $0.24 processor. oh look... there's enough spare pins to wire up UART, I2C *and* there's still enough spare - just - to wire up MS1 and MS2 on both steppers.

so for $0.24 plus some discretes i managed to turn two A4982 manually-configured A4982 stepper ICs into I2C software-configurable ones. that of course assumes that the STM8S003 isn't a total bitch to program and put into I2C slave mode. i've tracked down some firmware source... blasted ST have a proprietary license on it. it's an MIT license... except with a non-free clause preventing and prohibiting use of the source code on *NON* ST processors.

now, whilst the other two are pretty simple stand-alone and just generate output, so the various libre software examples can easily be adapted, this ones a hell of a lot more complicated: I2C slave mode really needs an IRQ handler.

fortunately i've designed the board so that you can also drop in a pair of manual potentiometers and jumpers for VREF and MS1/2.

the really *really* nice thing is that all the input pins (STEP/DIR/EN#) have ALSO been wired to... the STM8 (surpriiiise). and with there being room for UART as *well* the exciting possibility exists to put in an STM8S103 (with a bit more RAM and NAND), so as to be able to write some very very VERY cut-down G-code firmware and actually use the A4982-Dual_Stepper_Board as an actual stand-alone 2-stepper controller. with it having I2C as well it might even be possible to connect a separate MOSFET board to it, or wire it up to more A4982-DSBs, one as master, the others as slaves. on its own it would do pretty well for e.g. pen/plotter (2D) control and other 2-axis tasks, and there really isn't very much else on the board apart from the two A4982s, the STM8S, pin-headers and discretes. the only thing being, the RAM and NAND is *really* tiny. so, we see how that goes.

what else... oh, i'll be putting right-angle AUX pin-headers on them, on the *reverse* of the board, so that you can get heat-sinks onto the back where the VIAs are. that's how you're supposed to do it (like the TMC21xx boards), because, duh, the heat comes out the exposed pad, and the chip's case acts *as a thermal insulator*. duh. so by putting all the through-hole components on the back, multiple A4982-DSBs can be stacked up vertically, just like the BAM & Dice design. however this uses low-cost 2.54mm connectors, where BAM & Dice uses PCIe sockets.

what i would like to do in a future version of RD3D is *drop* two of the polulu sockets and put in *two* sets of expansion headers, for vertical connectivity of these dual-stepper boards. the general idea being, you get much better thermal dissipation, and can choose between a 2A A4982 or the much quieter 2A TMC2660 (which can be managed over SPI), but for where you really really don't need a lot of current (z-axis for example) you can drop in one or more low-cost A4988 polulu drivers.

anyway here's the PCB screenshot:



all of these are GPLv3+ licensed. i'm really really going to need some help with the STM8 firmware research and programming.

ok my head's swimming, i had to rush the last conversion of the 3rd board (z-probe) from the STM32F030 i was going to use, up until 4 days ago, to get the gerbers to the factory... i'm going back to sleep now

[edit] - oh, and it's all minimum 0805 components, all 3 boards, and no QFNs (the TMC2660-DSB is QFP as well) which means hand-soldering, either assembly or repair, is within reach.

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2017 10:20PM by lkcl.

Some mounting holes might be nice.... cant see any

^what he said

Edit: nice work!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2017 11:36PM by obelisk79.