Regarding RAMPS:
- 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.
- We’re including higher quality connectors all around that will make the whole board more bullet-proof and easier to wire up correctly and re-wire.
- 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).
- We’re adding conformal coating which helps protect the board (this could be done with RAMPS too, but it usually is not because all 3D printers are indoors)
- We’re adding some circuitry specific to encoders, which RAMPS does not have.
- We’re adding a dedicated 12v to 5v adapter to the board and a USB-power-out connector that allows us to power the Raspberry Pi directly from the board. This cleans up the wiring, saves cost, and will make it easier to switch to another host computer.
- Stacking RAMPS on top of the MEGA can be problematic - its difficult to do, its too easy to damage the boards/pins, and there is a design flaw that causes mechanical interference with the arduino’s barrel jack.
In future versions of our board we’ll look at integrating higher quality stepper drivers, adding even more encoder-specific hardware, switching to a 32-bit based Arduino-compatible MCU, and other features based on community feedback.
For software: It is hard to estimate when certain features will be implemented because of how difficult and complicated this work is. I will talk to the software team and see if we can get some rough estimates out. The next release though is slated for the end of next week though!