Farmduino vs RAMPS

[mdingena]

@roryaronson

Plugging encoders and the UTM into RAMPS is painful. With our board, each encoder cable and the UTM cable will have a single connector that plugs into a single, well labelled location on the board. This is easier, faster, less intimidating, and helps ensure everything is plugged in correctly.

I can’t help but feel this is trading flexibility for user-friendliness. The whole project itself it pretty intimidating, but what I love about it, is that it will allow you to hack in any field you are comfortable with (electronics, hardware, software, etc).

Does using a Farmduino still allow all sorts of additional peripherals to be connected, like how the Arduino and RAMPS have many unused pins for future use? I totally understand this move, but I’m not sure it’s justified if it reduces this projects amazing potential.

@roryaronson

We’re adding more mosfets and connectors for peripherals, so you can have solenoid for water, vacuum pump for air, LED lighting along the gantry, and two auxiliary peripherals for whatever else you want to power with FarmBot (more LEDs, another Arduino, a higher power DC motor, another solenoid valve or air pump, a water pump, etc).

So these are moved to this Farmduino board then? Sorry, it’s not clear to me. Maybe I just need to wait and see

@roryaronson

For software: It is hard to estimate when certain features will be implemented because of how difficult and complicated this work is.

Are you hiring?