Duet Controller or ebay spesh???

[JAZZCNC]

im not sure ig I would need anything else such as drivers for the motors? one advantage is that I could input the program off line so no danger of lost steps or pc crashes.

You would still need drives for the motors, it's only the controller you'd be buying. Also, if you have two motors on one axis ie twin ball-screws, then I've got a feeling these controllers don't allow motor slaving.? I could be wrong because I don't use or like them as I find PC-based controllers are more flexible and you can see what's happening better, they also allow for far more control of the machine.

They also don't take away the chance of missed steps.? They work exactly like any other controller regards step generation so if you over-tune the motors, which is the most common cause of missed steps, then they will do exactly the same as any other controller and you'll get missed steps.!

They will also still crash because it's still essentially a PC inside that's running the show, but yes they are slightly more stable than a PC that's been used for several other tasks. However, if you do a fresh install of windows on a PC, turn off all the crap running in the background and just use it solely for the CNC with a decent motion controller then you won't get crashes.

[cropwell]

They will also still crash because it's still essentially a PC inside that's running the show, but yes they are slightly more stable than a PC that's been used for several other tasks. However, if you do a fresh install of windows on a PC, turn off all the crap running in the background and just use it solely for the CNC with a decent motion controller then you won't get crashes.

I would guess that is little more than a GRBL based Arduino with a fancy graphics interface, still good enough for the job, especially if there is a buffered motion controller built in rather than native step/dir control. I would have to see the setup codes/procedure to be certain. Frankly I am not that interested at the Mo, but I might be if my PC fails to fire up after 2 years of down time.

EDIT - Having looked at the spec of the DDCS3 (or whatever) it is based on an ARM9 32bit RISC chip, this has been obsolete for a few years now (about 15 I think). There must be newer, better and possibly cheaper controllers out there.

[ravihotwok]

Thank you everyone for you advice and comments (even the c~~ty ones lol. I think im going to bit the bullet and give the duet a go.

I shall report back with a fresh thread on how things are going.

Cheers everyone :-)