Teensy based CNC board

How do you define "proprietary hardware"?

Mesa posts all their VHDL source. They just don't post the schematics, BOM and PCB layout files for you to directly copy and sell.

Teensy doesn't post the VHDL or Verilog source to the microcontroller or BOM and PCB layout files.

To be fair there has been a few cases where Peter has given out a few pages of schematics.

I fully agree with Bari. And I think it would be hard to find another manufacturer giving the support Mesa does. Even when people are adapting the source to a non mesa card.

I'm not going to argue about this any further just saying that I'm happy that linuxcnc seems to be moving same direction as 3d-printing industry. It's unlikely it would have developed so rapidly if they were as limited on (low cost) hardware options.

It depends on what you want really.

Mesa gives you a turnkey solution, ie you don't need to design or build other boards. I suspect Mesa will be around for a good few more years, so it would seem like a good long term solution.

Scotta is doing a good job with Remora, using existing hardware, and he is quite active in development.

Colorcnc has a cheap fpga board as a starting point; but to get input the board needs modification. Not an issue for myself as I have experience in board level repairs at industry level. This may scare off others.

Allwincnc seems a decent enough project, but I\O is only 3.3v, so voltage translation is required for anything other than 3.3 signals.

In all honestly for those that want a cheap entry to cnc Grbl seems to be popular. Not the best if you want to do threading or anything that requires real time synchronisation.

I don't think many of the Chinese manufacturers will be producing boards that work with Linuxcnc, so there will be a bit of DIY required. So I don't think Linuxcnc will get the same variety of products as the 3D printing scene.

In reality CNC is not cheap, especially if you want to start making chips in metal, more so if you need the rigidity to cut steel, even as a hobby.

Just because its "cheap" doesn't mean it will be good.... or fast.....

Mesa is not that expensive for their hardware..... you can buy the 7i92 for not a lot and add whatever or your own breakout board that will be fast and good.   Grbl is probably your solution for cheap and cost effictive cnc... although for a little bit of money 7i92 is a much better solution.

The thing with "cheap" is you are probably not valuing your time effectively ..... sure you may do whatever in your "free" time.... but could you be doing something more productive ..... 

 

I don't thing that it just about price, but you must believe that pc-industry would be where it is today, if 95% of the hardware would still come from IBM?