looking for a good 3d printer

[Ross77]

Also worth mentioning, do you really NEED a 32bit controller? I only use 32bit because my printers are driven by ballscrews and the steps per mm is higher than using belts, so performance wasnt great for me until i went 32bit. If you want to use ballscrews or build fast Delta Printer i would stick to Ramps or similar, Mega cheap and very easy to setup.

Im coming to that conclusion and may just get a cheap mega/ramps set up to start with while I learn. the belt drives I'm using are from a vinyl plotter and are geared so lookes like I will have plenty of resolution (20mm/200=0.1mm with no microstepping)

I do want to be able to print small high detailed parts tho.

Other than the fact that i can use a 1/32 mircostepping on the swappable boards is there any advantage of going with the soldered drives limited to 1/16th?

[magicniner]

Iis there any advantage of going with the soldered drives limited to 1/16th?

Yes, if something dies you get the pleasure of soldering to fix it ;-)

[AlexDoran]

If you want high resolution, you can still use TMC2100 stepper drivers, expensive compared to the more common drivers used on a RAMPS but can provide upto 1/256 microstepping iirc, operate almost silently too.

Thanks

Alex

EDIT: Although DRV8825's still provide excellent performance and resolution.

[m_c]

If you want high resolution, you can still use TMC2100 stepper drivers, expensive compared to the more common drivers used on a RAMPS but can provide upto 1/256 microstepping iirc, operate almost silently too.

Microstepping does not improve resolution. Due to stiction/friction in the system you can only guarantee positional accuracy to within 1 full step, regardless of the number of microsteps.
When microstepping, the simplest way to describe how the motor's rotor is being held, is opposing coils are pushing or pulling against each other and holding the rotor like it's being pushed/pulled by a couple springs. Then depending on the position of the rotor relative to the cogging, you've effectively got another spring trying to push the rotor either way. And that's before you allow for any stiction/friction affecting the forces.

The only real benefit microstepping has is it improves how smoothly a stepper motor rotates at low speed. Once you get above a certain speed, it has no benefit which is where good quality drives will gradually reduce output stepping to full step mode as motor speed increases. Good drives will also let you adjust the point at which that happens, as it helps avoid motor stalling due to resonance between the stepping speed, motor cogging, and load.